Hard fall from grace
Butler High School's varsity football team recently completed its second winless season in three years and hasn't had a winning season since 1997. This is the first of a three-part series examining the struggles of the program.BUTLER TWP — Gone are the days of winning football at Butler.Art Bernardi averaged 7.4 wins per season in 24 years as the Butler High head football coach before retiring in 1985.The Golden Tornado have averaged 4.3 wins in 24 years since then, 3.5 wins from 1993 through this season, one win over the past three campaigns. Butler will begin the 2010 season on a 14-game losing streak.What happened?
Butler football continues to tumble despite employing five different head coaches since 1993. The winning percentage dwindles with each coaching change.Mark Farabee won 43 percent of his games in six years at the helm. Garry Cathell won 36 percent of his games in five years. Current coach Jeff McAnallen has won 11 percent of his games over three years."The joy is in winning," Bernardi said. "That initiates interest in the program and kids playing football more than anything."Our seniors this year haven't seen a winning season in Butler varsity football from first grade through 12th. That's scary."Butler hasn't posted a winning record since going 6-4 under Farabee in 1997. The Tornado haven't been to the WPIAL playoffs since finishing 4-5 under Farabee in 1998, dropping a 13-6 decision at Bethel Park in the first round."Kids don't see what went on here 20 to 25 years ago," Bernardi said. "We had 10 to 15 busloads of students going to away games. Our players look in the stands now and don't see any students at home games."They can't identify with those days. There's no sense of pride in the program anymore. All these kids hear now is that they stink. They hear it in school. That can't be fun," he added.
Since Butler's last playoff appearance, the Tornado have gone 3-30 against North Allegheny, North Hills and Shaler — the three teams in their section that consistently make the playoffs.Andy Fair is a 2003 Butler graduate who played three years of varsity football. He now coaches East Side's varsity team, for grades seven and eight, in the Butler Area Midget Football League."It's disgusting," Fair said of the state of the program. "I have friends from Penn Hills, North Allegheny, North Hills — they poke fun at me all the time. Every year they talk about the prospects of their team, look at me and say, 'Well, we know you guys are going to lose again.'"Fair said his teams had three different offensive coordinators in as many years when he played at Butler."That made it tough on everybody," he said. "There was constantly new terminology, new techniques. But you have to stay positive through the tough times."These guys should be like a family. I'm still not seeing that up there (on the high school team)," Fair added.Cathell, who coached Butler from 2002 through 2006, said students don't want to be associated with a losing program."Kids have a lot of things they can do these days," he said. "It's easy to sit home and win at a video game and feel satisfied that way. ... It might take 10 years just to change the attitude in Butler, let alone the wins and losses."While Cathell described his time in Butler as "a good experience," he said the negativism around the community was difficult to deal with."The sad thing is the negativity came from the adults, not the players," he said. "The same people who pat you on the back and wish you all the luck in the world to your face were genuinely happy to see you lose."Some people are so negative, it's like a cancer."
Farabee was Butler's head coach from 1996-2001. He was an assistant coach under Bernardi and other coaches who preceded him. He is the line coach on McAnallen's staff."I've been part of four or five different regimes and no staff has worked harder than we're working now," Farabee said. "But winning is a habit and, unfortunately, so is losing."You drop a pass or miss a block early in a game and it's easy for kids to think, 'Here we go again.'"Butler freshman football coach Bob Zavacky said that "there's been more things said at the dining room table to hurt these kids than anything any coach has ever done."Zavacky was fired as coach shortly after this season ended. The Golden Tornado freshmen were 3-5 this year.Outgoing Butler school board member Craig Lucas, a Butler football player in the late 1980s and the current color commentator on Tornado football radio broadcasts, said the losing is a mind-set that's developed over time."When (coach) Tim Nunes retired (1992), this was still a strong program," he said. "Bill Bohren came in, made the playoffs in his one year, then got driven out of town by a bunch of backstabbing."That's where it all began. That attitude of losing came in and it's perpetuated."The perpetual losing has led to a lack of effort on the field, Lucas said."Watching games this year, I really feel a lot of kids were just going through the motions," he said. "I'm not seeing the heart, drive and intensity that was Butler football when I went there."It used to be so competitive just to get playing time. Everybody worked hard to succeed. It was like a self-challenge."Keeping athletes interested in football is a challenge when there's been years of losing."You can see it start to fade over time," Farabee said. "It used to be, when we'd start subbing, 10 or 15 kids would crowd around the coaches on the sidelines, looking to go in. Now we have to yell out a kid's name to get him to grab his helmet and get out there."A kid's psyche is so fragile. Kids get down easy. It's a society of instant gratification now," he added."When you don't have success, athletes tend to migrate to other sports," Bernardi admitted."Our baseball team turned around because the great leadership is there and the kids started buying into the program."Cathell turned around the football program at Peters Township before coming to Butler. Since being relieved of his coaching duties here in 2006, he inherited a winless Elizabeth Forward program, but guided it to a 5-4 season in 2008 and won four games this year.Cathell believes similar progress can happen to Butler football — given time."It doesn't happen in three years or five years. There's ups and downs," he said. "Keep the system intact and let the system work, regardless of what people may say or think."Up there (in Butler), somebody has to take the fall for something all of the time. It doesn't have to be that way."<B><I>Monday, Part 2: Parental interference affecting the program and a lack of player commitmentTuesday, Part 3: A look at the Butler Area Midget Football League and Lil' Tornados' player development </B></I>
