CURTIS HENRY
Assistant Sports Editor
In the world of sports, six years is essentially an eternity. That rings particularly true in the world of college sports, when the NCAA mandates that players only receive four years of NCAA eligibility.
Prior to the start of the Fall 2016 season, it had been just that amount of time — six years — that Brandon Butts had gone without wearing a Blue Devils uniform. The last time that Butts had suited up for Fredonia was at the end of the 2010 season, a year in which the Blue Devils tied for the regular season SUNYAC title.
Brandon Butts is an interesting character. He’s a lover of all things sports, and being a Chicago Cubs fan, he’s able to look at all things with a sense of humor.
“The Cubs are finally good this year, so if they make the World Series you know that I’m going to be in Chicago. The World Series overlaps with SUNYAC playoffs, though, so I’m gonna be faced with a pretty tough choice. I’ll probably choose Chicago,” he joked.
Butts, now age 26, grew up in the small town of Davenport, New York. Davenport lies on the border of Delaware and Otsego counties in Central New York, in the northern section of the Catskills.
His small high school size — he graduated in a class of only 23 students — led Butts to being an athlete in four different sports. He knew from the onset that he wanted to go to college and be a student athlete.
“I was one of only a couple guys in my class that didn’t go to BOCES,” said Butts. “I knew I wanted to go to college.”
That’s exactly what he did, spending the first two years of his college experience at Mohawk Valley Community College. It was there that he began his career in collegiate athletics more than eight years ago.
At the conclusion of his sophomore year, Butts found himself transferring to Fredonia after recruitment from Head Coach PJ Gondek. Little did he know at the time that his journey at Fredonia was just beginning.
After the completion of the 2010 season, Butts seemingly disappeared. His unenrollment from the school complete, he left the state entirely after only a single semester on the Fredonia campus. By all accounts, that was the end of his time here, and likely the end of his playing career in the NCAA.
Butts spent time from that point bouncing around at different odd jobs and journeying to different places. At one point, he found himself in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he re-enrolled in college. That, too, was temporary, as Butts lasted only a semester.
“I went to school [in North Carolina] for a semester, but something wasn’t right. I only took classes for a semester down there, and I lived down there for another semester before I ran out of money. Then I needed to come home,” said Butts.
His return to New York brought more of the same: uncertainty. He continued bouncing around odd jobs, and eventually, Butts found himself as a substitute teacher. Like most other things in his life over the past eight years, that job was only temporary.
“I was getting by, but I mean, I was just barely getting by,” said Butts. “I knew at that point that I wanted to work with kids, but I knew I needed a degree. I wanted to coach. I found out I was only 45 credits away from a degree, so I re-enrolled at Fredonia.”
The pursuit of a degree was why Butts found himself once again walking around campus this past Spring, doing what he could to finish out the Sport Management program. Soccer was a part of his past, and he seemed to be at peace with it.
“I thought I was done playing, honestly. Then Coach spoke up one day in the Spring when I was talking with him, and he said, ‘Hey, you know you have a year left of eligibility, right?’ That was the first time I even considered coming back to the team,” said Butts.
Butts started working out with the team in the Spring, carrying a heavy workout regimen with him over the summer. He knew what had to be done to prepare himself for this Fall, but knowing what has to be done and actually doing it are two completely different things.
“Fall conditioning was definitely hard. It got to the point where I couldn’t walk up stairs without hurting and holding on to the railing,” said Butts. “I was looking around to the other guys like, ‘Is this brutal for anyone else except me?’ I was just a step behind.”
“No one ever realizes how hard it is, at any level, to take time off and pick back up where you left off,” said Gondek. “Usually guys struggle with taking a year off of a sport. Brandon’s been gone for six. We knew he’d have his struggles, just because you can’t re-create college soccer and the physicality without actually playing college soccer.”
The only constants that remain on this team from 2010 are Gondek himself, and the tattoo that remains on the inside of Butts’ left wrist. Everything else, including Butts, has changed entirely.
“Don’t get me wrong. He’s still Brandon Butts. You can tell he’s the same guy, but he’s totally different than the Brandon I knew six years ago,” said Gondek. “He went from being the class clown to being everyone’s big brother, in a sense. He’s not a captain on this team, but his leadership is obvious. He’s much more mature, and I think he fully understands now the privilege of playing college soccer.”
Butts has come a long way from the dog days of offseason conditioning that got to him a few short weeks ago. He’s played his way into the starting lineup and has outperformed all expectations, earning Blue Devil of the Week honors earlier this month for his two-goal performance against Nazareth.
“People don’t know about him, and for us that’s a good thing,” said Gondek. “He’s big and strong. He’s physically dominant inside both of the penalty boxes, and that’s a huge advantage for us.
“He has a massive throw-in too. It helps us so much as a team, because any time we have a throw within 30 to 35 yards of the goal, it’s essentially an opportunity for him to throw a cross right into the mouth of the goal. He’s a great addition to an already experienced team, and we’re lucky to have him back.”
Butts will look to keep up his excellent senior season alongside the rest of his teammates as they advance through SUNYAC play. The Blue Devils are currently 6-2-1 after a weekend that saw the team split SUNYAC games with Brockport and Geneseo. Play resumes on Sept. 28 at home against John Carroll University.