Netflix releases long awaited documentary on louisville women’s basketball

Netflix releases long awaited documentary on louisville women’s basketball

Amanda Butler’s vantage point of the basketball court is angled a different way this season.

After occupying the first seat on the bench as a head coach for the past 18 years, she’s a few seats down now as part of the Louisville women’s basketball team coaching staff. It wasn’t something she’d initially planned for — but instead an opportunity that came at just the right time.

Butler was Clemson’s head coach for six years before getting fired last March. She compiled an 81-106 record with the Tigers and earned verbal commitments from one four-star and three five-star recruits in her final four years. Clemson lost out on signing Class of 2024 five-star guard Imari Berry, who decommitted after Butler was let go.

Butler and Berry ended up at Louisville and will face Clemson when the No. 25 Cardinals host the Tigers in their regular-season home finale Thursday.

“I think the thing in college athletics that people that aren’t actually doing the jobs of coaching and recruiting and the daily opportunities don’t understand sometimes is how challenging it is to win and to achieve consistency,” Butler said.

There’s just so many factors. But in all of those challenges, especially the ones that have presented themselves in the last five years, there’s opportunities to learn and there’s opportunities to look at things differently and try to solve problems and conquer challenges differently than maybe we would 10 years ago. So, hopefully, I’m bringing some of those experiences to (Louisville coach Jeff Walz) and the rest of the staff.”

Butler began her head coaching career at Charlotte, a two-year stint, before spending 10 years at Florida. Her time at Clemson ended sooner than expected but allowed her to develop a relationship with Walz as coaches in the ACC.

“We’d see each other on the road,” Walz said. “We were friends from within the league, obviously playing against each other. It was a good relationship.”

There was enough rapport between the two that when Louisville had an opening for another assistant coach, Walz knew who he wanted. Through prayer and trusting God’s plan, Butler said it became clear that, despite it not being on her radar, taking the job was a no-brainer for the wife and mother of two.

Two months after parting ways with Clemson, Butler and her family moved to Louisville.

“I have tremendous respect for Louisville and what Jeff’s built,” Butler said. “I think people don’t understand the level of consistency that he has achieved is incredible. There are a very, very small handful of coaches that have done what he’s done during this time.”

More than just Butler’s experience coaching in the ACC, Walz understands the value of bringing in someone who’s had the same responsibilities. He did it once before when he hired Beth Burns, who was a head coach at Ohio State (1997-2002) and is the winningest head coach in San Diego State women’s basketball history. She came to Louisville in 2017 and spent five seasons with the program.

Like Butler, Burns had a smooth transition when she joined Walz’s staff, reuniting with her childhood friend, Stephanie Norman. She said it wasn’t difficult to make the change from head to assistant coach because she felt valued. Her time in Louisville resulted in two Final Four appearances, four regular-season ACC championships (two outright, two tied).

Burns left Louisville in 2022 to return to the West Coast to join the USC women’s basketball coaching staff as the associate head coach.

“I think the value that Amanda, the value that I in both positions that I’m in now (have) is no matter what you think, from every other assistant’s chair, it’s like to be a head coach, you don’t know until you’ve been in it,” Burns said. “I think just for Jeff, for, in my case, Lindsay Gottlieb … it’s reciprocated in that your value to them is high because sometimes somebody just getting it helps because I can, like Amanda can, see what’s coming when maybe everybody else in the room doesn’t know it’s going to come yet because she’s been there.”