Appleton West retires Brian Butch’s No. 42
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APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV) – Appleton West honored one of its hoops legends on Friday night.
Brian Butch’s No. 42 orange and blue Terror jersey will forever live in immortality on Appleton’s west side. In front of a packed gymnasium, school officials held a ceremony to officially retire his jersey.
“Being part of this school and growing up in Appleton, it means everything,” said Butch after the ceremony.
The public address announcer introduced Butch and then he walked to center court to a standing ovation.
“The reason there’s a little tears is the people in this gym,” he said.
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Butch was a two-time Associated Press Wisconsin State Player of the Year. He’s Appleton West’s all-time leading scorer with 1,431 points and was a McDonald’s All-American.
He attended the University of Wisconsin and played for the Badgers for four years. He was part of teams that made deep runs into the NCAA tournament and ones that won BIG 10 titles.
Butch ended up playing professional basketball both overseas and in the NBA D League. He’s currently an analyst for the Badgers radio network and calls games for the Big 10 Network.
He said he remembers how much fun it was to play for Appleton West.
“It was absolute mayhem, he brought so much energy to high school basketball,” said Greg Hartjes who coached Butch in high school. “Brian was always doing the right thing as a student, as an athlete, as a person.”
Hartjes said he remembers a game when a Division 1 coach from a mid-major program came out to scout Butch. He said after watching the game, the coach told him that he felt like he had no chance of landing Butch because he was already too skilled for a mid-major program.
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For Butch, he said basketball has always been his passion but at the end of the day it’s always about something bigger. He shared this message with the current Appleton West basketball players during his jersey retirement ceremony speech.
“When you get a chance to play basketball you have little eyes that are watching you, realize what you have when you put on that Appleton West jersey,” said Butch.
“I always tell people that it doesn’t matter that he was 6-11, if he was 5-11 he was still going to be a great player,” said Hartjes. “He loves the game, he works so hard to be a great player and he deserved everything that he got.”
