James Wallace Butts was born on February 7, 1905 near Milledgeville, Georgia, the only child of James Wallace Butts, who ran a dray service (moving business), and Anna Lousetta Hutchinson. His mother died when he was only three years old, whereupon his father moved to Atlanta, and he was subsequently raised by a grandmother, aunts, and uncles.
James Butts attended Milledgeville's Georgia Military College, a prep school, where he became a standout athlete, starring in baseball, basketball, and football, and serving as captain of the latter two teams. In 1924, Butts entered Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, where he competed in the same three sports and was particularly outstanding in football: he captained his college team and was named an All Southern Collegiate Athlete during his senior season in 1927. Graduating with a B. A. in 1928, Butts made the transition from athlete to coach.
James Wallace Butts began his coaching career at Madison A&M University, serving there until 1932. He next coached at his alma mater, Georgia Military College, from 1932 to 1934. He rounded out his apprenticeship to the coaching profession at Male High in Louisville, Kentucky, where in the years 1934 to 1937 he had the distinction of leading his team to three consecutive undefeated championship seasons.
In 1938, Butts moved up to the college level of coaching when Joel Hunt, a former star player at Texas A&M and head coach at the University of Georgia, hired him as an assistant. When Hunt quit the following year, Butts was named head coach and began the remarkable twenty-two-year career at the University of Georgia that would make him a Georgia icon and a college football coaching legend.
Between 1939 and 1960, he led his team to 140 victories and 9 ties, against only 86 losses. His teams claimed four Southeastern Conference championships and appeared in eight bowl games (winning five).
In 1942 his Bulldogs won eleven games and lost one, and in 1946 the team won eleven games and lost none; in both these years Georgia's team was ranked number one in the nation by at least one poll. Butts often said that most winning coaches had something going for them beyond their own ability, by which he meant quality players around which to build and maintain a program.
He brought Sinkwich, Trippi, and 1948 All-American Johnny Rauch to Georgia from the North and used his talented players to establish the Bulldogs as the aerial masters of southern football. Winning conference championships in 1942, 1946, and 1948 by means of his powerful offensive blend of running and passing, Butts's teams hastened the end of one-dimensional football in the South.
The 1940's ended with Butts perceived as perhaps America's top collegiate football coach. Since football began at the University of Georgia in 1892, no decade was so unkind to the Bulldogs as the 1950's, however. Five seasons ended with more losses than wins. Even more humiliating, the Bulldogs lost eight consecutive games to their archrival Georgia Tech from 1949 to 1956. Influential University of Georgia alumni and faculty members launched several attempts to oust Butts during these dark days, but he survived and rebuilt the program by bringing in such new stars as Tarkenton and Pat Dye, who went on to become a famous coach at Auburn.
Perhaps Butts's finest moment came when All-Americans Tarkenton and Dye led Georgia to the 1959 Southeastern Conference championship, proving that the game had not passed Butts by. He coached one last season, finishing with a 6-4 record and closing out his career in dramatic style with a 7-6 win over Georgia Tech before his hometown fans in Athens, Ga. Butts gave up coaching to become athletic director at the University of Georgia in 1960, a position he held for three years.
During this time he found himself in the midst of one of the biggest controversies ever to shake southern football. The Saturday Evening Post published a sensationalized article that accused Butts of colluding with Paul ("Bear") Bryant, legendary coach of the University of Alabama football team, to throw a football game. The article reported that Butts had shared information about Georgia's formations with Bryant before the Bulldogs and Bryant's "Crimson Tide" met to open the 1962 season.
Both Butts and Bryant sued the Saturday Evening Post, and Butts's case made it to court. He won a $3 million libel suit; a later Supreme Court decision whittled the judgment down to $460, 000.
After leaving the University of Georgia in 1963, Butts launched a new career in insurance that eventually made him a millionaire. He owned and operated his own company in Athens, which thrived on the business of University of Georgia alumni.
Forever the athlete, Butts suffered a fatal heart attack after jogging several miles along an Athens street. He is memorialized by a $12-million, state-of-the-art, glass-covered office and practice facility at the University of Georgia.
After ending his football career, Butts established a credit insurance business in Athens and Atlanta, where he became very successful. Butts died of a heart attack after returning from a walk in 1973. He was buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens, Georgia.
James Wallace Butts's intense desire to win, knowledge of the game, and innovative techniques—including a devastating passing game—made him a coaching legend even before he retired. Though he was wracked by scandal late in his career, he is remembered as one of the great coaches in the history of UGA, and in all of college football. A motivator, an innovator, and a master field tactician, Butts built the University of Georgia into a national football power, making the college's "Bulldogs" one of the most celebrated teams in the United States. He coached some of the best players in football, including 1942 Heisman Trophy winner Frank Sinkwich, 1946 Maxwell Award recipient Charley Trippi, and Fran Tarkenton, who went on to become the leading passer in the history of the National Football League. The Butts-Mehre Building (Mehre coached the Bulldogs from 1929 to 1937), was funded through private donations from Bulldog boosters and dedicated in 1987, earning immediate recognition as perhaps the finest facility of its kind in all of college athletics. He was elected to the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1966 and was elected posthumously to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
Butts instilled discipline and a sense of values in all the young men who passed through his football program. Butts was a master tactician with the passing game.
In 1929 Butts married Winifred Faye Taylor; the couple eventually had three children.
1907–1990
1937–2010
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football player Butts coached 1942 Heisman Trophy winner Frank Sinkwich and 1946 Maxwell Award winner Charley Trippi.
track and field athlete
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football running back Butts' assistants in his first year as head coach were Bill Hartman, Howell Hollis, Quinton Lumpkin, Jules V. Sikes, Forrest Towns, and Jennings B. Whitworth.
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