1. Wally Butts was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1997.
18 Facts About Wally Butts
1. 2.
Wally Butts was a 1929 graduate of Mercer University where he played college football under coach Bernie Moore, as well as baseball and basketball.
3.
Wally Butts was an alumnus of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity.
4.
Wally Butts never failed to turn out an undefeated championship team at the three high schools he coached before arriving at the University of Georgia in 1938.
5.
Wally Butts lost only ten games in ten years of high school coaching.
6.
Wally Butts came to the University of Georgia as an assistant to Joel Hunt in 1938.
7.
Wally Butts was a proponent of the passing game in an era of "three yards and a cloud of dust".
8.
Wally Butts developed innovative, intricate pass routes that were studied by other coaches.
9.
Wally Butts was often called "the little round man" as he was five feet, six inches tall and had a squat body.
10.
Wally Butts coached 1942 Heisman Trophy winner Frank Sinkwich and 1946 Maxwell Award winner Charley Trippi.
11.
Wally Butts' teams won four Southeastern Conference championships.
12.
Wally Butts resigned as UGA's head football coach in December 1960.
13.
In 1963, Wally Butts filed a libel lawsuit against The Saturday Evening Post after it ran "The Story of a College Football Fix" in its March 23,1963, issue alleging that he and Alabama head coach Bear Bryant had conspired to fix an upcoming Georgia-Alabama game.
14.
Wally Butts was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1966 and posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
15.
Wally Butts died of a heart attack after returning from a walk in 1973.
16.
Wally Butts was buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens, Georgia.
17.
Wally Butts married Winifred Faye Taylor on February 19,1929.
18.
Many members of the Wally Butts family have gone on to support the University of Georgia in his honor.