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Jim Butler
Coach: McLean Blaze
11-Under Division 1
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Jim Butler
McLean Blaze, 11-Under |
General background. Jim Butler has been an Arlington resident since 1990. He currently lives near the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington with his wife, Kathy and their dog Coby. His daughter Emily is a freshman at the University of Mary Washington and his son Jeff lives and works in Baton Rouge, LA with his dog Shaq.
Coach Butler is a native of Seattle, Washington and a graduate of the University of Washington where he earned degrees in Business and Political Science; he also earned a Masters of Tax degree from Georgetown. Coach Butler works at Gannett Corporation, where he started working in April 2009 as the Director/Tax Reporting.
Coaching experience. 2009-2010 will be Coach Butler’s second year with McLean Select Basketball and he is honored to be a part of McLean Select Basketball. He will be moving up to coach the McLean Blaze 11-Under team that he coached as a 10-Under Division 1 team last season. Coach Butler has been coaching Select Basketball in Arlington since 2003 and AAU basketball since he founded Matrix AAU Basketball in 2003.
Most recently, Coach Butler coached the 2008-2009 McLean Blaze 10U team and during the 2009 Spring AAU season, he coached the Matrix 9U Green team AND the Matrix 10U White team, which was composed of most McLean Select Basketball players. During the 2009 Summer League, he led the McLean Blaze 11-Under team to the 12-Under Division 2 Fairfax Stars Summer League championship.
Coaching philosophy. Coach Butler’s philosophy is to teach young student athletes the game of basketball through individual skill development, focusing on basic fundamentals of the game and teamwork. His aim is to prepare all his players to be productive at the next level, be in on the court, in the classroom and/or any other aspect of his players’ lives.
Coach Butler’s brings a disciplined, no-nonsense approach to every practice and games. He likes a pressing, up-tempo game and man-to-man defense.
A recent addition to Coach Butler's practices is an increased emphasis on drills and scrimmages that encourage creative, uninhibited play; not only does this make practice more fun for the players, but when executed by disciplined players, leads to stronger, more skilled, more creative players.
While Coach Butler plays to win and likes to win, his approach is that if the girls “Play hard, play smart and play as a team,” that’s all you can really ask of your team. Plus, if the players and the team consistently achieve these three goals, the game scores and wins and losses will take care of themselves.
Other youth sports background. Coach Butler is the Executive Director of Matrix AAU Basketball and serves on the Executive Committee of the Potomac Valley Girls’ Basketball Committee. He is also the webmaster of the Potomac Valley Girls’ Basketball website and the McLean Select Basketball section of the McLean Youth Basketball website.
Other youth sport experience in Coach Butler’s background includes coaching House Basketball in Arlington for 7 years, coaching and/or assistant coaching Cal Ripken baseball and Arlington Senior Babe Ruth baseball for 7 years, serving on the Board of Directors for Arlington Senior Babe Ruth for 3 years, creating a coaching tips manual for Arlington Cal Ripken, and assistant coaching Arlington Optimists soccer for one season.
Coach Butler also created the websites still used by Arlington Cal Ripken and Arlington Senior Babe Ruth. He also assisted the Arlington Girls Softball Association with the reorganization of their website and managed the Arlington Travel Basketball website for four years.
You can e-mail Coach Butler at
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Last Updated: September 25, 2009.
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