Fran Tarkenton

Coach and athletic director at the University of Georgia for more than two decades, Wally Butts helped to shape the football careers of Hall of Famers Frank Sinkwich, Charley Trippi, and Fran Tarkenton. Perhaps more importantly, Butts instilled a sense of values and discipline in all the young men who passed through his football program at Georgia.

Born near Milledgeville, Georgia, on February 7, 1905, he was the only child of James Wallace Butts, who ran a dray service, and Anna Louisetta (Hutchinson) Butts. His mother died when he was only three, and he and his father moved to Atlanta, where young Butts was raised by a grandmother, aunts, and uncles. He developed into an outstanding football player and captained his football team at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. After graduating from Mercer in 1928, Butts began coaching at Madison A&M University and later coached at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville and Male High School in Louisville, Kentucky.

In 1938 Butts was hired as an assistant by University of Georgia football coach Joel Hunt. The following year, Hunt quit, and Butts took over as head coach. Over the next twenty-two years, he built the University of Georgia's Bulldogs into a national football power. Perhaps his finest moment came in 1959 when his Bulldogs, led by All-Americans Tarkenton and Pat Dye, won the Southeastern Conference championship.

Butts left the University of Georgia in 1963, not long after a scandal erupted over a story in the Saturday Evening Post charging that he had colluded with legendary University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant to throw a game in 1962. Both Butts and Bryant sued the popular magazine, but only Butts' case made it court, where he was awarded libel damages of $3 million, a figure eventually pared down to just under $500,000. Butts launched a new career in the insurance business. He set up his own company in Athens, Georgia, and eventually became a millionaire, largely on the strength of business from Georgia alumni. In December 1973, Butts suffered a fatal heart attack while jogging on the city streets of Athens.