"I told him, 'Man, you too little to play football. "How can this young man, as skinny as he is, be as fast as he is? Malcolm was running 4.3s and 4.4s back then, you know? Always a very confident kid," said Stevens, who was the head coach at Vicksburg High from 2001 to 2011. He had 13 carries for 344 yards and six touchdowns as a senior. About once a game, he'd get the rock and make a splash play. He was always a good cornerback, but he lit up Vicksburg High as its secret offensive weapon. As a single mother, Deborah worked two jobs at nursing homes with little pay to support Malcolm and his four siblings. "You work for everything you want here."īutler's mom, Deborah, taught him how to grind early. "Someone who ain't never been to Vicksburg, you would probably have to adjust - your mindset gotta be ready to adjust for something much slower," Butler said. And Butler, now a millionaire with a household name, is still the epitome of a Vicksburg man. The stories here are of perseverance, loyalty and pride. There's more poverty than wealth and more failure than success. Vicksburg is a primarily African-American blue-collar town of 23,000, built on people who've made a routine of survival. But Vicksburg is still where he feels most comfortable. His latest stop in Nashville made him rich. "Wash them off real good and just chow down."īutler's four years in Foxborough, Massachusetts, made him a star. "I used to love to eat the pears," Butler said. It was much smaller when he used to live here. The tree is one of the few things that has changed in Vicksburg. He brushes off his white T-shirt, takes a sip of a 32-ounce orange Gatorade, that he jokes is "neckbone juice" after sitting for an hour in the sun, and says: "I want people to know Malcolm Butler."Ī trip to the Mississippi Delta, where Butler was shaped by Popeyes chicken and walking a mile through backwoods shortcuts every morning to school, tells you exactly what he means.īutler looks up and down for several seconds sizing up a large pear tree in the front yard of his low-income childhood home. He believes he has more to offer the world, and the NFL, than those two moments. He doesn't want to be defined by Super Bowl LII or even Super Bowl XLIX. Butler isn't interested in those questions, either. Even on Wednesday, nearly six months after the game, Belichick wouldn't talk about Butler's benching. Many sports fans are still seeking an answer for why Belichick didn't play Butler for a single defensive snap against the now champion Philadelphia Eagles. "I don't want a feel-sorry-for-me story." It's unclear whether Butler realizes, after the big contract he signed with the Tennessee Titans in March, that the world has 61 million reasons not to feel sorry for him. "I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me," Butler repeats several times. You know, Coach, you always got that right word," Butler responded.īutler went from a last-ditch tryout for the 90th spot on the Patriots' roster to becoming New England's improbable and beloved Super Bowl XLIX hero, but his last memory in New England will be of the game he didn't have an impact on. "If it weren't for coach Belichick, it wouldn't have been a Malcolm." "Sometimes we gotta sit back when we really feel like lashing out," Stevens told Butler. His former Vicksburg High football coach, Alonzo Stevens, was calling to deliver some succinct advice. Then a Mississippi number he couldn't ignore popped up on his cell phone. He felt a range of emotions, from anger to frustration to bewilderment. Rumors drug Butler's name through the dirt. These tears, much different than the ones he shed after Super Bowl XLIX three years before, carried more pain than anyone will know. Images of tears flowing down his face during the Super Bowl LII national anthem filled sports talk shows. These were the most difficult 24 hours of his NFL career and the then-New England Patriots cornerback wanted room to breathe. Dozens of calls and texts went unanswered. Malcolm Butler tried to turn the world off. Malcolm Butler refuses to be defined by a pair of Super Bowl moments You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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