MATTHEWS, N.C. — Longtime Butler High School head football coach Brian Hales isn’t retiring. He doesn’t like that word.
“I’m not trading you guys for another team,” he told his team in early March when he announced his leave.
Instead, he’s stepping away from a nearly 20-year run as the Bulldogs head coach, ending the longest active tenure among Mecklenburg County coaches.
He joined Butler as offensive coordinator in 2004 and took over as head coach in 2010. After 20 grueling seasons, he says it’s time to focus on himself.
“I’m not leaving you. I’m just doing something for me,” Hales explained. “There’s nothing wrong, I just want to take better care of myself.”
Hales decided to leave the sidelines on his own terms, having won 131 games and never losing more than 4 games in a single season. He brought home the state championship three times in his career, in 2009, 2010, and 2012.
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Hales gave Butler everything he had for 20 years, sending players to the NFL and helping kids become the first in their family to attend college through a football scholarship.
In exchange, Butler provided a home base. He told Channel 9 Sports Director Phil Orban that the Matthews school was the first place he took his newborn daughter from the hospital.
“Kennedy was born in February of ‘04 and before she went home, she came to Butler,” Hales remembered. “We stopped at the school to show off the baby.”
Kennedy is now in college. His son Cooper is a senior at Butler.
“It’s just been my place, like they gave me my start as a teacher, they gave me my start really as a coach, they gave me an opportunity to be successful,” he said.
He will still teach at Butler, the school he’s given two decades of his life and has been home to memories he’ll never lose.
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