Coach BUTCH Perry

  Butch and Tad Sr. were teaching and coaching when my brothers and I were in school. After high school, I became a coach and shared the same locker room with Dad's coaching friends. I was the new guy. They were the legends! The spark for BUTCH SLAPS was a conversation about these legends. Here it is...

  “John, I know your father. You’re better than this!” I heard Butch’s voice in my head, though John was telling me the story for the first time, twelve years after the event! John is an older brother of mine. My early steps were in his. Growing up, I lived to be a better man like John—a man like Dad!
  When I heard the story, I was a college student and our high school's varsity assistant wrestling coach. Dad was soon to retire after a career of teaching and coaching at the same school. I shared the locker room with the coaches (the legends) we grew up with.
  I was telling John how blessed we were by these men. My understanding and admiration grew profoundly as I got to know them better. People adored them as they continually earned respect and got extraordinary results! Telling John more about them led to him finally sharing his Butch Slap Story!
  Telling the story, John was a new husband, a new father, a homeowner, and a smarter, hardworking man. He was loved and respected everywhere. But where was John twelve years earlier?
   John was sitting in the junior high gym bleachers serving a lunchtime detention. He wasn't even allowed to buy ice cream. Sitting by himself, no one was allowed to sit near him or talk to him.
  Butch Perry, our PE teacher, walked up the stairs and through the bleachers to sit and have a quick word with John. John's face grew flush.
  “John, I know your father. You’re better than this!” In short, Butch told John to get better friends and stop finding trouble. A slap on the back, and Butch was off to the other guys, one by one.
  John found new friends after lunch that day! They became standup men, captains, and team leaders. They are a resilient brotherhood that endures today—45 years and counting.
  Butch never gave me a slap like that—he didn’t have to. Butch slapping John reached me that day, though I didn't know it. That one slap has countless ripples through time.

  I'm on a mission: to gather and share more BUTCH SLAPS, to help grow our gratitude for these moments, and to inspire us to deliver our own small slaps that create huge changes! Butch Slaps shall be my Thank You to Butch Perry until eternity! Thank you, Butch Perry!

  Happy Slapping!