NAU’s Emmanuel Butler among top receivers in nation

On his sixth birthday, Emmanuel Butler faced an unusual decision. He had the option of either getting a bicycle or the chance to start playing football.

“At the time it was a hard decision,” Butler said. “Something inside me just told me to go with football. Even though I was young I still knew that football would create opportunities and memories for me.”

Although he realized how cool it would have been to have a “mini-motorcycle,” as he called it, Butler went with his gut and chose football. Thirteen years later, that decision is paying big dividends.

The former Phoenix Mountain Pointe High School standout has established himself as one of the best receivers in Northern Arizona University history after a stellar sophomore season in which he set school records with 1,208 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns. His 109.8 receiving yards per game ranked fourth nationally among all FCS players.

Butler is built like a pro-style wide receiver – at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds he towered over his fellow receivers during a recent spring practice – and his leaping ability allows him to play even bigger.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody go up and get the ball better than he does,” said NAU wide receivers coach Aaron Pflugrad, who starred as a receiver at Arizona State.

Butler thought that leaping ability might translate into a college basketball scholarship. He averaged more than 13 points and 10 rebounds per game as a senior at Mountain Pointe, but fate brought him to football.

After choosing football pads over the bicycle as a 6-year-old, Butler found himself playing defensive tackle on a youth football team. He wasn’t the star of the team in his younger days, though, getting in for a few plays and being taken out. Still, he stayed with football.

Growing up on the south side of Phoenix, Butler was an outgoing kid with a big personality, and although he insists he was not a bad kid, he admits he did get into a fair amount of trouble. Eventually he grew out of the “class clown” phase and looks back at it with a bit of surprise because many now know him as a quiet, keeps-to-himself kind of person.

Now he leads by example.

“He’s a natural leader even though he’s kind of the silent type,” NAU head coach Jerome Souers said. “I think other teammates look to him to make a play and when he does he draws his team with him.”

As Butler progressed with football he also played basketball his entire life, and when he got to high school he decided to continue to play both sports, and stick with whichever one got him the furthest. In his sophomore year playing football, Butler was not seeing the field as much as he wanted and thought he would quit to focus on basketball. However his dad, Earl, was not fond of the word “quit.”

“I was over it, but my dad didn’t let me quit, he said I wasn’t allowed to,” Butler said.

Still, Butler was convinced that he would go to college on a basketball scholarship. That changed the summer before his senior year when he attended a 7-on-7 passing tournament with his Mountain Pointe teammates in Flagstaff.

Butler left the camp with the Most Valuable Player award in one hand and a scholarship offer in the other.

A tight end in high school, Butler went to the 7-on-7 camp and lined up as a wide receiver. He beat people one-on-one all day by out-jumping them. He had hands like magnets that were just naturally attracted to the football.

“His kinesthetic awareness with ball and flight is just amazing, and he’s a tremendous athlete,” Souers said.

In his senior year Butler was part of a highly touted Mountain Pointe football team that went undefeated on its way to the school’s first state championship. Although he spent most of his time at tight end, he and fellow Mountain Pointe alum Jalen Brown combined for a one-two punch on offense that put up 42 points against longtime powerhouse Chandler Hamilton High School in the state championship game.

What stands out to Butler’s high school football coach Norris Vaughn is how hard he worked in practice. Butler volunteered to be part of the scout team that went against the first defense in practice. Starters don’t usually do that, even at the high school level.

“He’s one of the hardest workers and will do whatever it takes to do the job and win,” Vaughn said. “When we won state his senior year he was a big part of that and he can go as far (in football) as he wants to.”

Souers and his coaching staff saw something in Butler that no one else did when they were recruiting him. They knew he was a tight end, but wanted to utilize him as a wide receiver.

Size, speed and athleticism are intangibles that make Butler a nightmare for opposing defenses. If the ball is close to him, chances are he’s already up in the air waiting to grab it and turn to the end zone.

“He’s a tenacious receiver,” said NAU cornerback Wes Sutton, a Chandler High grad who played against Butler in high school. “He’s tall, fast, physical, everything. He’s got great hands; the strongest hands I’ve ever seen. When he goes up to get the ball he just wants the ball more than the defensive back does.”

After logging 13 catches for 235 yards as a freshman, Butler broke out in a big way in his first game as a sophomore, catching seven passes for 216 yards and three touchdowns in a 43-28 win at Stephen F. Austin.

Butler’s big day helped ease freshman quarterback Case Cookus into the offense. The pair formed a dynamic duo for the Lumberjacks all season, giving NAU one of the most prolific offenses in the nation, averaging 39.3 points per game.

“I knew that if I threw the ball and it was 50-50 he was going to get it, those 50-50 balls really turned into 60-40, 70-30 balls because he’s able to go up and high point the ball and be physical with the defensive back,” said Cookus, who earned FCS freshman of the year honors.

Butler knows that he’s athletic and it is something he has been told his entire life, but it is something that he knows he can’t rely on to become a better football player.

“There’s a lot of the game that is mental, and there’s other details that I have to focus on to improve my game to get to where I want to go,” he said. “I don’t want to just rely on my athletic ability to help this team win.”

Butler might not have gotten that bicycle, but for a 6-year-old he made the a long-term decision that is still paying off, and one that he hopes will continue to pay off after his college days with the Lumberjacks are over.

NAU football spring game

When: April 23, 2 p.m.

Where: Walkup Skydome

TV: FOX Sports Arizona

Admission: Free, open to the public