Summer 2017

About the Magazine

Northwestern is the quarterly alumni magazine for Northwestern University.
Contact or contribute to the magazine.

Campus Life
Offensive lineman JB Butler prepares to block in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Football Walk-Ons Are Backbone of Program

Story Tools

Share this story

Facebook  Facebook
Twitter  Twitter
Email  Email

Print this story

Tell us what you think. E-mail comments or questions to the editors at letters@northwestern.edu.

Find Us on Social Media

Facebook  Twitter  Twitter

Northwestern has a long tradition of football players who began their careers as walk-ons before becoming major contributors and eventually earning a scholarship.

Just weeks ahead of Northwestern’s Pinstripe Bowl matchup with the University of Pittsburgh in December, offensive lineman J.B. Butler was pulled out of a team lift and escorted to head coach Pat Fitzgerald’s office.

At that time, Fitzgerald ’97 informed Butler, then a walk-on who had started the team’s previous six games, that he would be put on scholarship. The two embraced before Butler called his parents, Tom and Margaret.

“There were some tears shed on the phone because they were just as invested as I was,” Butler says. “It was pretty emotional.”

Butler, a junior from Plainfield, Ill., who plays guard and contributes on special teams, committed to Northwestern from Joliet Catholic Academy under the impression that he would, despite his walk-on status, compete for playing time in Evanston. And, with that idea in mind, Butler says he worked as hard as he could to prove to the coaching staff that he deserved his chance.

“I’ll always be known as the kid who came into this program without a scholarship,” Butler says. “If I lose that, I kind of lose who I am as a player.”

Butler is the latest in a long tradition of Northwestern football players who began their careers as walk-ons before becoming major contributors and eventually earning scholarships. Players such as Butler and Austin Carr ’16 — a former walk-on who became a third-team All-American at wide receiver and was named the 2016 Richter-Howard Big Ten Receiver of the Year —make up the “backbone of the program,” Fitzgerald says.

“It’s a special thing that we have,” Butler says. “It just kind of writes the narrative that if you want something bad enough and you work hard enough for it, it really doesn’t matter if you’re a step too slow or not big enough. You can do it if you work harder than the guy next to you.”

The Wildcats’ 2017 recruiting class includes six preferred walk-ons, all of whom have the same dreams of following in Butler’s path.

When they arrive on campus ahead of the 2017 season, Butler plans to give the group the same short message that he received when he was a freshman: “You belong here.”