Just two days into his Harvard football career in his freshman year, senior cornerback Benny Butler was shocked to learn that the promise he had based his college decision on was in fact a lie.

“My high school coach told me he thought I could play tailback at an Ivy League school but that I’d probably have to play cornerback at another Division I school,” says Butler. “But I really wanted to play tailback, and the coaches at Harvard told me they thought I could play tailback here. So it made my decision pretty easy after I had a great visit.”

On the second day of practice when he arrived in Cambridge his freshman year from his hometown of Louisville, the coaches told Butler that he would actually switching positions and playing defensive back, just the thing he had hoped to avoid when he first chose Harvard over a Division I school.

“I was devastated at first and it was really hard,” Butler says. “I never played one lick of defense in high school and in the beginning of the season I was just kind of out there without any confidence in my ability.”

Despite his early misgivings, Butler quickly blossomed into an effective defensive player with the help of his coaches and the tutelage of elder defensive back Willie Alford ’02, an All-Ivy performer during the 2001 Ivy Championship season.

“As the year went on, I just realized that the coaches were right and that cornerback was the natural position I should be playing in college,” Butler says. “At that point I just embraced it and tried to be the best cornerback I could be.”

By the end of his freshman season, Butler had improved to the point where he was starting. In late season action, he nabbed the first two interceptions of his college career.

“Benny wasn’t used to playing defense, so it was a very new thing to him,” coach Tim Murphy says. “But he handled it with maturity, and he had a lot of success [early on].”

Butler has steadfastly improved throughout his Harvard career. In this, his senior season, he is clearly an elite player in the Ivy League. He started beside Alford during the 2001 campaign, in what turned out to be Harvard’s first undefeated season since 1913. Even then, his mentor could see big things in Butler’s future.

“Benny Butler is the best sophomore cornerback in the league and a future first-team All-Ivy,” Alford said before the 2001 Harvard/Yale game.

Butler considers being an integral part of winning the Ivy League Championship to be one of the best experiences of his Harvard career.

“As the Penn game was winding down and we knew we were guaranteed a piece of the Ivy League Championship, I just looked over at Shawn Parker [‘02], and said, we did it, and that was just an unbelievable feeling,” Butler says.

Butler had another steady season in the Crimson’s 7-2 campaign last season, racking up 39 tackles and 10 pass breakups to go along with one interception after switching over to left cornerback from right cornerback.

Coming into this season, one of the things that Butler felt his game lacked was the ability to make a big play on the ball, as he had only one interception in two years as a starter after making two during his first season as a member of the Crimson.

To improve this, Butler worked hard on focusing on making plays on the ball in practice during the spring and summer and began the season with better technique.