O’Leary: CFL 2024 official Larry Butler readies for his closing recreation
Larry Butler’s path into officiating isn’t that completely different from his friends. He simply received to the nation’s greatest stage somewhat later than he thought he would.
Whereas rising up in Winnipeg, he performed Pop Warner soccer as a child. In his mid-20s, he realized he couldn’t commit the time to teaching, however nonetheless wished to be concerned within the recreation. That’s the place he discovered officiating.
A piece-driven transfer to Edmonton didn’t change the eagerness he was creating for officiating. He continued on within the Alberta capital, working his means up by means of highschool, junior soccer and the college ranks. He was in his 40s when he made the transfer to the CFL, together with his first recreation coming in 2004. He could have been barely older than a few of his officiating friends within the league, however the camaraderie that officers construct working collectively crammed in any generational gaps.
“I’m 66 now,” Butler stated this week from his house in Edmonton. “I’m in all probability if not the oldest, one of many oldest officers to work within the CFL.”
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Larry Butler, seen right here at backside proper, labored 4 Gray Cup video games as a CFL official, together with the a hundred and tenth Gray Cup final 12 months in Hamilton (Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca)
Saturday will mark the tip of Butler’s spectacular run as an on-field official. He’ll have upward of 30 family and friends members within the stands at Commonwealth Stadium when he works his closing recreation, conserving each side sincere within the Edmonton Elks and Calgary Stampeders Labour Day rematch. He’ll transition right into a recreation day supervisor position by means of the Elks’ closing three house video games, then decide it up totally in 2025.
In his 20-year run, he’s labored over 300 video games and 4 Gray Cups (2013, 2018, 2022 and 2023). He’s zigzagged the nation through the years, attending to see it by means of the distinctive lens that solely the CFL can present.
“It was a novel journey. There was a time after I didn’t suppose I used to be going to get to the CFL,” he stated, remembering being interviewed by the league in 1998 however not getting the decision up.
Butler is grateful to longtime Edmonton official Wayne Fleming, who all the time put Butler’s title ahead to the league and inspired him.
“(Fleming) instructed me yearly he would put my title ahead and (transferring as much as the CFL) didn’t occur,” Butler recalled. “Then in ’04 I received the decision and was excited to go.”
Over these 20 years, Butler has completed an amazing job at conserving Father Time at bay when it got here to his work on the sphere. He prioritized his health and it grew to become a key part in his success conserving tempo with a recreation performed by males of their 20s and 30s.
“While you begin that late, health is an enormous a part of it,” he stated. “I all the time labored laborious on my health and took satisfaction in the truth that I couldn’t essentially hold as much as the youthful guys, comparatively talking. Health is what stored me in there so long as it did.”
A runner for over 30 years, Butler has accomplished 5 marathons. He hit the gymnasium wanting ahead to preseason health testing, desirous to get one of the best outcomes that he may.
Whereas he determined that he’d step away from his on-field work this season, Butler admits will probably be tough to let it go. He was sitting within the officers’ room in Montreal a number of weeks again and the opposite officers had been speaking about their post-Labour Day schedules. Now and again it’s hit him that his run is coming to an finish.
“I’m content material with my resolution. I’m undecided how I’m going to really feel on Saturday,” he stated.
“It’s going to be an enormous change. It’s been a very good trip for the final 20 years.”
The 4 Gray Cups that he labored are jewels within the crown to him. That first one, in Regina with the Roughriders in it, stands out. With lodges at a premium in Regina that 12 months, the officers stayed in RCMP barracks, making it much more memorable.
“We’re all in it to excel, to be one of the best that we will be,” he stated. “Initially of yearly, your aim is to work the final recreation. So every of these video games has significance for me, every in its personal means.”
He’s scanned over fields throughout the league this 12 months and sees acquainted faces, gamers that had been round in his early years as a CFL official who’ve grown into head coaches. Jason Maas and Mike O’Shea come to thoughts for him rapidly. That on-field relationship is an attention-grabbing one and when it has a long time to develop from official-to-player to official-to-coach, it makes him smile.
“You might inform any individual like Mike O’Shea, when he was enjoying was coach materials,” Butler stated.
“Only a actual scholar of the sport and he nonetheless is. It’s been attention-grabbing to see how these guys go from cerebral gamers to assistant coaches and work their means up.”
There’ll be a reception ready for Butler late on Saturday evening, after the ultimate whistle is blown on the Elks-Stamps recreation and the stadium has emptied out. There’s a fraternity-like bond that types between officers within the years they work collectively. He’ll have fun that on Saturday, whereas processing loosening the grip on one thing that’s been part of him for two-thirds of his life.
“I liked the sport,” Butler stated of what initially led him down this path. “It was a strategy to be concerned within the recreation. And the camaraderie amongst officers is second-to-none.”