“Whatever Coach needs me to do, whatever my team needs me to do, I’ll do it,” she said. “Whatever we need to do as a team and a program in order to be successful and win a game, I’m fine with.”
Butts is whatever she needs to be — whatever her team needs her to be.
She always has been.
An athletic advantage
Before she raced up and down the basketball court or flew into the air to grab rebounds, Butts displayed her skills as a track and field athlete.
When she moved from Chesapeake, Va., to rural Winterville, N.C. — located just south of Greenville — in the second grade, Butts had yet to pick up a basketball. She wouldn’t start playing the sport until the fifth grade.
She continued running track until the end of high school, receiving multiple accolades in the process.
As a senior at South Central High School, she won the state 3A track championship MVP after winning the high jump, triple jump, 4x100- and 4x200-meter relays.
While track and field wasn’t the sport she’d ultimately choose to compete in at the collegiate level, the similarities between it and basketball in terms of required athleticism allowed her to hone her talents.
“Everything just started morphing together and kind of put me at an advantage,” she said.
An advantage she utilizes for both herself and her team.
A natural competitor
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
Robert Duck became Butts’ basketball coach in the seventh grade and coached her through her senior year of high school. He remembers meeting the agile sixth grader a year before she joined the team.
“She was very springy, long and could run like a deer,” he said.
“She got up and down the floor, and she could jump. She could jump a little higher than most of the girls in the sport at that time and she ran the floor harder and better than a lot of people.”
From the moment Butts stepped on the floor, she made an impact. It was a part of the competitive nature both Duck and Hatchell rave about.
Much like she does for UNC, Butts brought energy and emotion to her middle school and high school teams — hustling after loose balls, playing aggressive defense and leaping for rebounds.
“It elevates every girl around her to play,” Duck said. “They want to get on the floor a little harder, they want to run the floor a little faster, and they want to box out a little bit better.”
And there never was a stopping point — especially after realizing her chances of playing collegiately.
Butts would wake up in the morning before school and run. Duck recalls getting calls from her pleading for him or one of the other coaches to let her in the gym at 6:45 a.m. the next day, getting in two or three extra practices a week due to her diligence.
“You see that and you knew you had something, because you had a girl that just wanted to succeed,” Duck said.
“She wanted to do everything right, and she wanted to do it as many times as she could, she wanted to get as many reps in as she could.”
Basketball became 24/7. And her hard work paid off.
By her senior season, Butts was one of ESPN’s top 100 recruits in the nation. She lived up to expectations, carrying her team to a state championship and earning herself a third all-tournament team selection in the process.
But that wasn’t the crowning moment of her senior year.
‘What you work for’
Butts sits at a table at South Central in front of her school’s trophy case, a plethora of UNC apparel laid out in front of her.
It’s Feb. 2, 2011, the day she signs her National Letter of Intent to play basketball at UNC — the school she’s always wanted to go to, where she will play for a coach she’s always admired.
She looks around the room, and the two most influential people in her life — her mother and father, with whom she’s made countless trips to Chapel Hill — are all she focuses on.
“I remember seeing tears on my mom and dad’s faces,” she recalls. “To see they were that proud is what you work for. Just making your parents happy was the greatest feeling about that.”
It was at UNC’s basketball camp a few years before when Butts first officially met her future head coach.
As she and her father stood in line to register for the camp, Hatchell emerged from the Granville Towers cafeteria. The Hall of Fame coach turned her head and recognized the young player.
Butts said she froze.
“I was so scared. I was so surprised like, ‘She knew my name? Oh my God, she spoke.’”
Hatchell and associate head coach Andrew Calder had been keeping tabs on the lively guard from Winterville.
“I just saw that potential she had as far as her athleticism, but also how we like to play,” Hatchell said. “I felt like it was a good fit.”
It just took some adjusting to get it right.
Defining her role
After finishing her high school career as the program’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, Butts was flung into UNC’s rotation the moment she stepped on campus.
But it was a different role than she was accustomed to — a bench player.
While dealing with the greater physicality in the college game and conditioning drills that shocked the former track star, Butts contemplated her role and how she could help the team.
“Coming in freshman year, you’re always indecisive — what position are you going to play, what do they need me to do?” she said.
“There was pressure to adjust, but I just wanted everything to come to me. I knew that I had to learn a lot, so I wasn’t mad. I got frustrated, but I wasn’t mad. I let the teaching run its course.”
Hatchell played her at multiple positions throughout the season — even throwing her in at power forward despite her being shorter than most players at the position.
And it’s at that position where the 5-foot-10 guard has excelled the past two seasons, using her speed to blow past bigger defenders and defining her role as — according to Hatchell —the best sixth player in the ACC.
“I love being the energy coming off of the bench and helping my team,” Butts said.
“I do all the little things, get emotional, get excited, dive for those balls, encourage my teammates.”
When her team needs her energy the most or someone is hurt, Butts is the one Hatchell calls on. The coach told her that would be the case her freshman year.
“I said, ‘You’re going to have lots of hats to wear and a lot of different roles,”’ she said. “It’s just a matter of what we need and when we need it.”
That time is now — Butts is ready to move into a regular starting position.
“I had no problem coming off of the bench and giving my team energy, and I have no problem with starting,” Butts said. “I’ll do anything to help my team.”
Whether it’s as a spark plug off the bench, a member of the starting lineup or a support system for her team, she will be whatever her teams needs her to be.
She always has been.
sports@dailytarheel.com
