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 Even before his Beaver Falls High School Girls’
basketball team won the WPIAL Class AAAA title in 1985, Butch Ryan
was a highly successful coach, even though he was inducted into the Beaver
County Sports Hall of Fame as an athlete. Butch was head coach
of the Beaver Falls girls’ basketball team and the girls’
track team for more than ten years and helped develop hurdler
Candy Young.
Butch’s track teams won 83 meets and lost only 13 between 1975 and
1984, and his basketball squads had a 195-44 record at the end of
the WPIAL playoffs, which included a 25-1 record by the 1985 Tigerettes and the first WPIAL girls’ cage title for a county
school. To prove his versatility, Butch served as an assistant
football coach to
Larry Bruno from 1970 to 1979 and was the Tigers’
end coach during that time. During his own high school days at
Beaver Falls, Butch won eight letters in football, basketball, and
baseball and served as team captain in all three sports his senior
year. During his sophomore and junior years, he was a defensive back
and running back and took over quarterback duties in his senior year
of 1961, leading the Tigers to a perfect 10-0 record. He was a
Big 33 selection and a high school All American pick that year. Butch
then went to the University of Iowa, where he won three letters each
in football and fencing. That’s right, fencing! |
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