Thomas Arden Butters (April 8, 1938 – March 31, 2016) was an American professional baseball player who spent parts of four seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...

, then had a lengthy career as a college sports administrator at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. He is best remembered for his time at Duke and for being a key figure in the financial success of the

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

Biography

Baseball career

Butters was a native of Delaware, Ohio, who attended

Ohio Wesleyan University Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a private liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium ...

in his native city. In baseball, he was a , right-handed pitcher. He signed with the

in 1957 after being scouted by retired Pirates' general manager

Branch Rickey Wesley Branch Rickey (December 20, 1881 – December 9, 1965) was an American baseball player and sports executive. Rickey was instrumental in breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing black player Jackie Robinson. He also creat ...

, also an Ohio Wesleyan alumnus. Butters required almost six full years of

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

seasoning before being called up by the Pirates in September 1962. He then spent parts of the next three seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), including most of 1964. In 28

games pitched In baseball statistics, games pitched (denoted by Games G in tables of only pitching statistics) is the number of games in which a player appears as a pitcher; a player who is announced as the pitcher must face at least one batter, although except ...

for the 1964 Pirates, including four starts, Butters had a 2–2 win–loss record and posted a 2.38 earned run average (ERA). En route to

spring training Spring training is the preseason in Major League Baseball (MLB), a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for Schedule (workplace), roster and position spo ...

with his young family in 1965, Butters suffered a severe whiplash injury in an automobile accident. He spent most of 1965 on the

disabled list In Major League Baseball (MLB), the injured list (IL) is a method for teams to remove their injured players from the roster in order to summon healthy players. Before the 2019 season, it was known as the disabled list (DL). General guidelines ...

and cut short an attempted comeback in 1966 when the effects of his injury proved insurmountable. In 43 career MLB games pitched, Butters compiled a 2–3 record, striking out 85 batters and issuing 56

bases on balls A base on balls (BB), also known as a walk, occurs in baseball when a batter receives four pitches that the umpire calls '' balls'', and is in turn awarded first base without the possibility of being called out. The base on balls is defined in Se ...

innings pitched In baseball, innings pitched (IP) are the number of innings a pitcher has completed, measured by the number of batters and baserunners that are put out while the pitcher is on the pitching mound in a game. Three outs made is equal to one innin ...

with a 3.10 ERA.

College sports administrator

A United States Army veteran, Butters had also spent baseball off-seasons working in admissions for his alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan. In 1967, he joined

as director of special events, then served three years (1968–1970) as head baseball coach before moving into administration. Butters served as the athletic director at Duke from 1977 to 1997. Three years into that tenure, he hired Mike Krzyzewski as coach of the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball program; Krzyzewski went on to become the winningest coach in men's Division I history. During his two decades as head of Duke intercollegiate athletics, Butters supervised programs that won 40

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

(ACC) team titles. In addition to serving as athletic director, Butters was director of the "Iron Dukes" (the fundraising organization for the school's athletics), associate athletic director, assistant to the chancellor, and vice president of the university. During Butters' 1989–1994 tenure on the NCAA's basketball committee, including two years as chairman, he was part of the negotiating team that brokered a $1 billion contract with CBS Sports to televise the annual " March Madness" men's basketball tournament. Butters was elected to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Duke Sports Hall of Fame in 1999, and received the Robert Strimer Honor Award from Ohio Wesleyan in 1998. Butters died in 2016; he was survived by his wife and two children.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butters, Tom 1938 births 2016 deaths Asheville Tourists players Baseball players from Ohio Burlington Bees players Charlotte Hornets (baseball) players Clinton Pirates players Columbus Jets players Duke Blue Devils athletic directors Duke Blue Devils baseball coaches Jamestown Falcons players Las Vegas Wranglers (baseball) players Major League Baseball pitchers Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops baseball players Ohio Wesleyan University alumni People from Delaware, Ohio Pittsburgh Pirates players Salt Lake City Bees players San Jose Pirates players Savannah Pirates players Tigres de Aguascalientes players Wilson Tobs players