Butler slam-dunks life
It started after spending a few hours at a park in Oakland, Calif. with his mama.
A young Cardell Butler took the basketball handed to him by his mother and followed her instruction: “Shoot it until you make it in the hole.”
Rosaria Harris stood there for two hours watching Cardell heave the ball at the basket before it finally went in. Having been successful, did Cardell and his mom pack up and go home?
No. That wasn’t their style.
“I said, OK, stand over in the corner and make it,” Harris said.
It was another hour or two before that shot went in. That didn’t matter though.
“I took him out there, it was the only thing that would hold his interest for long, that he wouldn’t cause any problems and do anything bad,” Harris said. “I think it was the summer of ’86 that it was constant.”
As the years passed and Butler went through grade school and junior high, he pushed himself more and more into the sport of basketball. And he was good.
“The first time he made a dunk I believe Cardell was 10,” Harris said. “People would look at him like ‘How do you do that?’
“I thought it was just him.”
His love for basketball, however, started to interfere with his school.
Harris said she received a call when Butler was in seventh grade, telling her that he was outside in the storming rain shooting three-pointers. Harris drove to the school to escort Butler back to class.
“We started making deals,” Harris said.
She wouldn’t let Butler take a basketball to school, but said he could go to the gym after he finished his homework.
The deal worked for Harris and Butler. His love for basketball grew and grew.
“Everything in my house was basketball,” Harris said.
As Butler got a little older, he started to make a name for himself.
“I would wake up early Saturday morning looking for him,” Harris said. “He would be at the basketball court with some bigger guys watching them play. He’d just sit there and watch, he would watch for three or four hours.”
When the bigger guys would see Butler play, they told Harris, “you’ve got a player on your hands.”
Harris said her son told her he was blessed with a gift and he should use it. Harris told her son, “Some people don’t realize that the gift they have is a blessing.”
Butler told his mom that what he wanted to do was play basketball, and he did.
But it was in high school that Harris said the problems started to come.
“Some of these coaches were more worried about Cardell playing ball than they were about his school work,” Harris said.
Butler was having trouble going to all his classes and making the grades as a student at Balboa High School inside San Francisco. Harris told the coach that Butler could not play because he didn’t make the required grades.
“I said if he played this game, then I’m going to come to the game and pull him off the court,” Harris said.
The coach told Harris that Butler would not play. But the scheduled basketball game was moved to another building. Harris said a friend, telling her that Butler was playing in this basketball game at another building, contacted her.
She dropped what she was doing and went to the game.
“I walked right in the middle of the court and said ‘let’s go, Cardell,'” Harris said.
The game stopped. Most people in the building wondered what was going on, but Harris knew, the coach knew, and Cardell knew.
Harris said that coach was fired three weeks later after it was discovered he had coaxed a teacher into giving Butler an A in his class, even though Butler missed 45 days of the course.
It was time for a change.
Harris arranged for Butler to move in with her brother in San Mateo, Calif.
“I said we have to do something else,” Harris had told her son. “If you would just try one time to do your best, I promise you it’ll be different.”
It was after the move to San Mateo High School that Butler became acquainted with his new coach Tony Raffetto.
The move to San Mateo did not solve all the problems immediately, however, for Butler and Harris.
“They didn’t really want him, but I explained to the coach and I explained to the principal at that time what was going on,” Harris said.
Butler’s mom and the principal of San Mateo High School made a deal.
“He’s got six weeks to prove to me that he can do the work,” Harris said the principal told her. “If he cannot do the work, we’ll just send him back to San Francisco.”
Harris said she told Butler that nobody wants a problem. She told him to prove the principal and others wrong.
It wouldn’t be an easy task for Butler to transition into life in San Mateo, but Raffetto was there to help him along.
“He needed someone to take him in transition from where he was,” Raffetto said. “He had a lot of people that were willing to help.
“He needed more than a little help.”
Raffetto had heard about Butler through a player on his team, Doc Stevens – Butler’s cousin.
The first time Raffetto saw Butler play basketball he had to ask how old the kid was. He was 16 at the time, but had size 19 shoes.
“He could play but he was obviously having issues going to school in San Francisco,” Raffetto said.
So Butler was enrolled in classes in San Mateo. After seeing Butler’s class schedule, Harris said Raffetto contacted her about the classes he was in.
“He said they put him in an honor roll class instead of the classes he really needs to be in,” Harris said.
She told Raffetto to let him stay in the advanced class.
Every night, Butler would call his mother, and every night Harris said she would tell her son to “Just try, just try.”
Butler tried.
Harris said his report card had changed drastically; she was getting calls from the principal, the vice principal and the coach. Butler was put in a class where everyone else was always doing their work, so it encouraged him to do it, too.
And the more work he did in the classroom, the more he did on the court.
For so many years, people had always told Butler to just hold the ball and play the game, but Harris said Raffetto changed that.
Raffetto said Butler fit right in with everything that was going on at San Mateo.
“He wasn’t like everybody else, he wasn’t unlike everybody else,” Raffetto said. “There is huge diversity here, the richest people and the poorest people go to school with each other.”
Harris said Raffetto helped Butler with his game and his school, the relationship worked well for all involved.
“I give all my credit to Tony,” Butler said. “That’s my first time playing organized basketball, it was with his team.”
Prior to playing for Raffetto, Butler said he didn’t know much about the pick-and-roll, he just wanted to play.
Butler became a star for his San Mateo team. Raffetto said thousands of people would fill the gym to watch any game Butler played in.
After his career at San Mateo, Raffetto said, Butler was considered by many to be the best basketball player ever in the Peninsula, the area between San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.
Harris said Butler became a player other teams feared.
“Three-man screens couldn’t stop Cardell, I’ve seen teams get down the court and fear Cardell,” she said.
Butler’s time at San Mateo high school was up though. Butler passed his classes and graduated and the time came to look at colleges.
Harris said Raffetto told her there were some people coming to see Butler about playing for their college.
“I said they don’t want to see Cardell, they want to see me,” Harris said. “We all met at the school and we sat and talked.”
The school was the College of Southern Idaho. After Harris met with the president of the school, they invited Butler to Twin Falls, Idaho for a visit.
“I told Cardell, don’t get caught up in the fanfare of your visit, they’re going to make you want to be there,” Harris said. “[I told him to] look at the school, look at the campus, and look at the programs they’re offering.”
Harris said Butler called her when he was in Idaho and said that the school had put his name on a bank marquee and put candy in his room. She reminded him of what she told him.
“I don’t care if he ever plays ball, I just want him to have a piece of paper that you can’t take away from him.”
Butler returned from Idaho to make a decision with his family. He decided to attend CSI.
“They [friends] were shocked that I went to Idaho,” Butler said. “[I heard] a lot of potato jokes, you know, Idaho potatoes and cowboys.”
Butler left for school, and for the first two weeks, Harris said, he was homesick.
“I think that the first two weeks I was in Idaho [visiting Cardell], I became the team mother because everybody was homesick,” Harris said.
She returned to the school every-so-often, but the last time she visited Butler in Idaho was when he played his last game.
“Cardell has kind of matured, he’s matured to the point now that mama doesn’t have to be there all of the time,” Harris said.
Desiring to continue school, Butler had to choose which school to continue his education at. Harris said her son received offers from schools in Texas and Arizona, but his choice was Utah State.
It made a whole lot of sense to come up here,” Butler said. “There’s a lot of land here, it reminded me so much of my junior college, the whole main strip is filled with food restaurants.”
Both Butler and his mother agree, the environment at USU is just what Butler needs.
“There’s so much to do in the city,” Butler said. “There’s nothing to do here, if you want to get in trouble, you’re not going to get in trouble.
“I’m in a good situation at Utah State.”
Now, as a senior, and team leader for the Aggies, Butler is making huge contributions to the men’s basketball team.
“Cardell is doing absolutely great, he’s proven it by the way he has played,” said assistant coach Don Verlin. “He’s gotten a lot more mature. He’s grown up.
“He knows what it takes to win and to be a good player.”
Maybe the biggest statistic or award Butler will receive this season, however, is a bachelor’s degree.
He’s come a long way.
“I wish you could roll the time back to five or six years ago when he came to San Mateo,” Raffetto said. “If you said this kid was going to get a college degree …” Raffetto trailed off. “He was all over the place.”
Butler said he would like to play in the NBA next year, but he knows that whatever happens, happens, and he’ll keep smiling with his smile that seems pretty contagious.
Raffetto: “He has the best smile in the world.”
Verlin: “The guys like him, the coaches like him … he’s a good person.”
Harris: “That’s just him. Cardell’s a big baby, that’s all Cardell is, a big baby.”
Butler has had highs and lows during his career as an Aggie. This season he has scored career-highs in points multiple times and has become a very consistent shooter for the team, a result of better practice habits, Verlin said.
In 2003 at the Big West Tournament, Butler was named the Most Valuable Player, and as he hoisted the championship trophy over his head, his mother saw him do something she hadn’t seen him do in many years: Cry.
“He just started crying and I hadn’t seen Cardell cry in 17 years,” Harris said. “He had reached his mountain top.”
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