How well do you know the Texans coaching staff?
We interviewed Houston's assistant coaches this offseason and learned some interesting facts, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with football.
Here are seven things you don't know about Texans secondary coach John Butler:
- Butler originally had no plans to coach. He was hoping to pursue a degree in Human Resources Management and try to find a regular office job out of college. After his senior season, Butler's coach, Tom Clark, asked to consider coaching as a career.
- At the age of 24, Butler worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Texas under both John Mackovic and Mack Brown from 1997-1998. He calls that 19-month span, "one of the most influential" of his coaching career. Texas went from winning the last ever Southwest Conference Championship to firing Mackovic following a 4-7 season during Butler's first year. The ups and downs of coaching sunk in and he witnessed, first-hand, the business side of football.
"We ended up going 9-3, Ricky Williams won the Heisman, and Texas took off from there," Butler said in an interview on Texans 360. "To see both sides of the spectrum in a very short amount of time was an experience for me that I'll never forget because it just was one that I lived."
- Butler's wife was born in raised in Quanah, Texas, a small town near the Oklahoma border.
"She jokes with me when I brought her back to Texas she says, 'It's like coming home.' I said, 'Well, it's still seven hours away. It's like me being from Boston.'"
- Butler once worked as lot boy at a car dealership, owned by one of his mentors. He was subsequently fired when he wrecked cars on two different occasions while parking them.
"I was 15-years-old and hadn't had my license yet, so that's my excuse."
- Butler also cut lawns and had a paper route.
- He and Craig Fitzgerald, head strength and conditioning coach, have been close friends since their teenage years. They both attended La Salle High School in Philadelphia and played on the same high school football team.
- Butler's favorite hobby is spending time with his four-year-old son named Manny.
"It's by choice by me, but I wouldn't have a choice," Butler said. "I joke with (Mike) Vrabel and said that when you have a four-year-old son, every free minute you have you just get mauled. I mean, he wants to throw the ball, he wants to kick the ball, he wants to shoot baskets, he wants to wrestle, he wants to play pool upstairs, when it's warm he wants to swim, he wants to go for a walk, he wants to go to the playground. During this offseason, which is good in the NFL you have some time for your family, but that's all I do, which is what I look forward to."
