Big Money

First impressions matter. That’s not to say that a poor first impression can’t be overcome or that an excellent one can’t lead to an estranged relationship, I simply say it because it’s true. We naturally judge others in the three to five seconds of our first encounter, even if its only subliminal, and we hold on to those judgments until we have overwhelming evidence to contradict our original thoughts. If we get a bad vibe from someone, it takes very little from them to reinforce our original opinion, but it will take an almost Herculean effort to force us to change our original impression. I say all this to say, I met Ed Butler today, and he’s built like a freakin’ truck.Meeting someone who has their own gravitational pull usually puts me at high alert; my general rule of thumb in any situation is to make sure I don’t upset the biggest guy in the room. Make that man your friend. Follow that one simple piece of advice and you’ll go far. In this case, however, there was nothing to worry about. Ed Butler, who played D1 football for Tennessee from ‘97-01 (and has the ice to prove it) now works as a financial consultant for Raymond James in Birmingham. He meets me with a smile that will dim even the most fluorescent of lights, leaves his phone in his office and invites me to come hang out. We caught up with him to get his take on everything from college football with Peyton Manning to helping athletes manage their money.78 Magazine: You went to Tennessee at a pretty exciting time for that program. What was it like as a freshmen going to Knoxville when you did?Ed Butler: When I got there man, it was tinsel town. That was a really, really good football team. It was honestly pretty intimidating being a freshman, but it was incredible to play with a team that, on each side of the ball, had about 9 guys go on to play in the league.78 Magazine: Who was the best player you played with in your time there? Was it Peyton or someone else?Ed Butler: You’ve almost gotta say Peyton, just ‘cause of what he’s done in the pros and what he’s still doing. I tell you someone my year that was incredible too was Jamal Lewis. He could run, man. But really the whole defense when I was there was so good. (He pauses, smiles, and his eyes glaze over for a second as he remembers some private moment). Nobody hit like we did. I’ll watch games now and no one is hitting like we did. Guys I played with were intentional when they hit you. People were scared of our defense, especially in ‘98 when we won the whole thing.78 Magazine: You’re from Huntsville, went to high school up there. How was the recruiting process different back then that it is now?Ed Butler: It was on the cusp of what it is now. Instead of texting and all the social media stuff it was a lot of handwritten letters, maybe come home from practice or whatever and a coach would be in the driveway. Phone calls were obviously a huge part of it. So it was important and a big deal, but these kids are getting indoctrinated into the next level of the media world real quick these days. They’re learning a lot faster now that what you say stays with you.78 Magazine: After football, how’d you get here? What led you to the financial industry?Ed Butler: My first experience with any of this stuff was when I was twelve or thirteen and my mom bought me some stock in General Electric. I didn’t know anything about the stock market or anything, so a while later a letter comes for me in the mail, and I knew it wasn’t from my grandma ‘cause she wrote in cursive and this was all printed out nice. I asked my mom what it was, and of course she knew what it was but she told me to open it and find out. It was a dividend check from General Electric. I said, “Is this real money? Can I spend it?” Mom said, “Yeah, it’s real.” So then I asked her why I had to do chores if I could just get money from General Electric. She told me, “You’re gonna do chores because I’m your momma and I’m tellin’ you to do chores.” But that was my first introduction to anything related to the financial world.78 Magazine: You’ve probably seen Broke, the ESPN documentary about athletes who make a ton of money then lose it all. What’s your take on why that happens?Ed Butler: I mean it’s a tough situation. You take a kid whose 20-22 years old and put millions of dollars in his hand, he’s already been spending that money before he even gets it. He’s buying Mom a house and Dad a car and taking care of whomever else, then you’ve got someone like me telling him he just got all this money and doesn’t need to buy all this stuff? When you put water in a bucket and poke a hole in the bottom, pretty soon there’s not gonna be any water left. When you put water in a bucket with five, six, seven holes in it, whatever water was there goes quick. So it’s a combination of age, yeah, but if we took any forty-year-old in Birmingham and gave them millions of dollars, they’d be the same way. It’s tough for people to look past the now into the future when the now is so real, and the future is just an idea.78 Magazine: Do you try and cater to or specialize with those kids?Ed Butler: Honestly no. I want to be able to help out my whole client base, which definitely covers a wide scope of people. If there’s a family I know that has a kid in a position to play big time sports, if we both think it would be a good fit for us to set something up then yeah. But really, man, I’m here to help whoever I can have the best quality of life they can. I want to help people move from one stage of life to the next and make sure money isn’t a concern, because we helped them do the right things up front. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.When we’re wrapping up, we start talking about life in college and the good ole days, and Butler is asking about my college experience. The advice he leave me with is to keep up with the guys I was close with in school, because it gets so easy to drift away from those people as real life begins to happen. As I’m walking out, he’s getting excited and says, more to himself than me, “I need to hit some of them up, it’s been too long.”As long as he’s not hitting me, we’re in great shape. 78