There are plenty of ways to leave a legacy.

Butler High football has produced plenty of them, both on and off the playing field.

Most people know about on-field legends like Terry Hanratty, the Saul brothers and Scott Milanovich. They have been duly recognized for their accomplishments.

Not as many know of the legacies produced by people like Art Monteleone, Greg Brown, Joe Savannah, Rudy Corona and John "Doc"Graham.

Everyone knows the head high school football coach in a community. Few would recognize that a group of assistant coaches stuck together for 20 years or more for the pure enjoyment and sense of satisfaction that comes from working with young people.

The Butler Football Hometown Hero program brings some of these behind-the-scenes legacies on stage for one weekend of celebration.

Monteleone has been a football and basketball official for nearly 40 years. Brown used his financial skills to save the Butler Area Midget Football League from bankruptcy. Savannah ran Butler's weight room for years, Corona has the longest tenure of any athletic trainer in the area. Graham worked the chains during football games for 29 years.

Mark Farabee, Jack Lehew, Bill Tack and Jim Kamerer were among the previously mentioned loyal group of Golden Tornado assistant coaches.

Next weekend marks the seventh annual Butler Football Hometown Hero inductions. Five more honorees — Ed Hartman, Bill Rettig, Paul Smiley, Jim Lokhaiser and "Chick" Yates — will be introduced before the Mars-Butler football game at Art Bernardi Stadium Oct. 15.

A golf outing at Hiland Golf Course and a recognition dinner at St. Michael's Hall follow Oct. 16.

Rettig became a self-taught painter who has won national awards. Smiley coached a deaf football team in Kentucky. Lokhaiser built a 50-year broadcasting career, and Yates became a surgeon specializing in adult hip and knee replacements.

Hartman was killed in an automobile accident 27 years ago, but his legacy lives on.

Each year, a Geneva College football player receives an award in his honor and folks around town who knew Hartman still get teary-eyed when his name comes up.

He served as a blueprint for what a young person should be. His life remains a standard we all should strive to attain.

Hometown heroes extend beyond the athletic field. Sports merely serve as a training grounds for life.

Hartman, Rettig, Lokhaiser, Smiley and Yates have demonstrated that in their own way.

They've built their own legacies.

Butler football has seen coaches and players come and go.

But friendships, camaraderie — and future Hometown Heroes — remain.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle