The Fairborn resident has played the best and beaten the best, as his 1994 PDC World Matchplay Darts Championship won in Blackpool, England, attests.
Butler remains the only American to win a major darts tournament in Europe.
He was ranked No. 1 in the United States from 1991-95 before quitting the sport from 1996 through 2006.
Butler — who served as an encryptographic technician maintaining equipment with the Navy and had top-secret clearance with the Navy, CIA and state department — picked up the sport while stationed in Scotland in the late 1970s.
He enhanced his skills while living in Washington, D.C., and later throwing in Boston’s Minuteman League, the largest in the country.
Butler, who was born in Kentucky, moved to Dayton in 1992 to be closer to family and be more centrally located to tournaments.
Butler, 53, and his wife Sharon have three kids — 9-year-old Sarah and 6-year-old twins Lauren and James.
Butler and his son James recently attended a youth/adult tournament in Connecticut and won despite James’ having to compete in the 7-12 age group.
In his words
“(I got started by) going to pubs and we had a dart board in my shop on the Navy base. Five or six of us would play games to see who bought the rounds of Cokes, things like that.
“Money was a lot better in the 1980s and 1990s than it is now for tournaments in this country. In England, it’s gone completely the other direction.
“(My favorite European city) would have to be Blackpool, which is in England on the Scottish border. It’s like Disneyland.... It’s like a resort town and that’s where I won my world championship.
“Spend the extra money to stay as close (to Washington) as you can. Traffic there is horrible.
“The darting skills didn’t leave, but the focus and determination during competition, I had to relearn all that.
“Watch the top players in the world and see how they hold the dart, throw the dart. If you see guys at league night they’ll roll the dart on their fingers, they’ll lunge toward the board, they’ll bounce. Usually it’s in some sort of rhythm as they’re throwing. The most successful people in darts will stand perfectly still. ... They’ll drop the elbow back and launch the dart like the cup of a catapult.
“I did a little bit of (hustling) back in the 1980s. D.C. had a lot of transient people and military players who thought they were pretty good. There was a place in D.C. called the Jolly Archer that was set up like a bowling alley. You’d pay for so much per hour.
“James got his own trophy, so he’s pretty proud of that.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2400, ext. 6991, or gbilling@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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