BUTLER TWP— Glory and gratitude were the prevailing themes of the first Butler Football Hometown Hero Awards Dinner Saturday night at St. Michael's Hall.

The fourth-year program's 2007 honorees — Mark Farabee, Jim Kamerer, Jack Lehew, Jim Love, Gary Milanovich, Tim Nunes, Bill Tack and Harold "Bo"Voelker — combined for 196 years as assistant football coaches at Butler, from 1959 through 2001.

Nunes and Farabee later became Golden Tornado head football coaches.

"You talk about one of these guys, you're drawn into talking about all of them,"said Hank Leyland, who played for and coached with many of the honorees. "They're all so humble. They always step back."

And they seemingly always won. From 1976-78, Butler's varsity football team was 34-4-2. The Tornado reached the WPIALchampionship game four times from 1977 through 1993.

Bill O'Donnell, accepting induction on behalf of the late Bo Voelker, mentioned that the 1975-76 Tornado teams allowed 69 total points in 18 games.

The 1965 team allowed 18 points all year and posted shutouts in its final five games.

"Defense like that ... That's all coaching,"O'Donnell said. "These coaches were outstanding. When we lined up and saw the formation on the other side, we knew what was coming. That was coaching."

Leyland said that few players from the teams in the 1970s went on to play major college football.

"Because a group of coaches believed in one another, they got 100 young men to believe in the same thing,"he said. "They took a bunch of average or slightly better than average players and made us believe we could do great things if we hung together.

"These guys took the game of football and through it, taught us about life. Having a winning attitude, desire and competitiveness was only part of it. They gave us self-confidence so we could succeed in our lives. To me, that makes them heroes in this community."

Current Butler football coach Jeff McAnallen presented Lehew, who coached junior high ball at Butler for more than 30 years.

"To coach at that level for that long, you have to do it because you love the kids,"McAnallen said.

"These guys are the reason I wanted to come back home. I got into coaching because of them. I'm going to do my best to turn things around here."

Lehew admitted to having a problem with being labeled a 'hero' when he first received the news of his Hometown Heroes induction.

"I think of a real hero being a fireman running into a flaming building to take a child out or a soldier running on to a battlefield to help a wounded buddy ... I've never been anything like that,"he said.

"Then I looked up the definition of hero and saw that it also means being part of something big. I guess that's true in this case."

Master of ceremonies Ralph McElhaney played on two undefeated junior high teams at Butler. He pointed out that Farabee, Nunes and Tack were teammates on the Slippery Rock University team that won the 1972 PSACchampionship.

"They knew how to win and taught us how to win,"McElhaney said. "I became the first non-teacher coach on the staff and that was a little intimidating.

"I always believed that the more a coach yelled, the better he'd be, but Bill Tack was the complete opposite of that. His demeanor is real calm and the kids respected him."

Tack, like most of the other honorees, had little to say in accepting his award Saturday night.

But, perhaps, he said it best.

"I'm honored to be up here with all these people,"Tack said.