EKB Scouting Service

NEW YORK - Odds are, you have never heard of Ed Butler. Unless you're a high school or college basketball coach, or some kind of recruiting junkie, there is no reason you would have.

When a high school basketball player gets a college scholarship, you will most likely see the player and his coach quoted in the newspapers. Butler never gets mentioned. But Butler is responsible for hundreds of kids getting an opportunity to attend college who might otherwise not have. He may be the single most influential person in the basketball recruiting world in the state of New Jersey.

"Where would all of these kids be if it wasn't for a showcase like Eddie's?" asked Kennedy coach Jim Ring. "Maybe packing groceries, maybe working in the supermarket or working in a warehouse or something.

"Butler, an Orange native who played junior varsity ball at St. John's University in the 1970s, has a full-time job as a service consultant at the New York Life Insurance Company. But his main passion, the one he has devoted the last quarter century to, is scouting basketball talent.

His EKB Scouting Service puts out a quarterly report that is one of the most respected in the nation by college coaches. The two showcases he runs each year at the Dunn Center in Elizabeth, one in the fall and one in the spring, have been responsible, by his account, for placing hundreds of kids in college.

"I like the fact that I can help kids, and in Jersey a lot of kids are hurt by the fact that you don't have that many schools," the 5-foot-9 Butler, dressed for work in a suit and tie, said over lunch on Thursday. "We have tons of talent, but not enough colleges for the talent that we produce."

Through the years, Butler has developed a vast network of contacts at every level of coaching across the country. He likes to point out that junior colleges, like four-year schools, are also divided into Division I, II and III schools, but that the Garden State lacks any Division I jucos. Thus, it has become a specialty of his to place local kids into Division I jucos, with the hope that they might move on to a four-year school after two years.

Butler isn't affiliated with any apparel company, and he isn't known for steering kids toward certain schools in return for a sack full of cash or a closet full of sneakers. He isn't one of the shady street agents who has corrupted the recruiting landscape and forced the NCAA to rewrite its policies regarding AAU basketball.

"All he's doing is giving kids a second chance at an education that they otherwise might not have had," Ring said.

The Kennedy coach ought to know. The list of local players Butler has helped across the years is a virtual who's who of area talent: former Eastside star Kwan Johnson, former Paterson Catholic standout Donald Hand and, most recently, a string of Kennedy grads looking for a stepping stone to a four-year school.

Several years ago, Butler paved the way for Kennedy guard Vince McGill to attend Western Oklahoma State University, a junior college. McGill ended up at an NAIA school in Florida, and fellow Kennedy grad Tommy Trent may follow suit by going to a four-year school out of Western Oklahoma. Since then, Ring has sent Bashir Grimes, a former Herald News All-Area selection, to the school. And next year, Richard Haywood, a 2005 All-Area selection, will join him.

"It goes on and on, the kids that Ed Butler's sent me here," Western Oklahoma coach Jerry Kassin said by phone. "And every one of them has gone on and graduated and done well in life."

Butler also helped former Kennedy standout Naim Benjamin get into Des Moines (Iowa) Area Community College. After Benjamin excelled there for two years, becoming the leading scorer in the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference last season, Butler helped Benjamin earn the Division I scholarship he had been seeking for the last few years. Next season, the 6-2 Benjamin will suit up for Long Island University.

"He's gonna come out with a GPA over 3.0," Des Moines coach Orv Salmon said of Benjamin. "It's legitimate work. He's got a future both on and off the floor."

Butler doesn't just help inner-city kids, either. Wayne Valley center Bill Moakley went into the EKB Roundball Showcase in Elizabeth on April 17 with interest from a handful of local D-III colleges like Montclair State and Ramapo. Division I coaches were not permitted to attend the event because of NCAA regulations, but the coaches who were there were given a bio of every player in attendance, and Moakley's read: "Much-improved scorer and rebounder; makes his presence felt at both ends."

After one day at Butler's event, the 6-8 Moakley was excited because coaches from Division I Morehead State in Kentucky were offering him a scholarship to the four-year school. Just like that, Moakley's life may have changed in one day because of Ed Butler.

Butler talks with pride about how Plainfield native Jihad Muhammad was recruited to San Jacinto (Texas) Junior College, a national powerhouse, right out of his event. After becoming an All-America there, Muhammad now starts for Cincinnati. Devonne Giles of Newark went from a Butler event to Seward County (Ks.) Community College to Texas Tech.

The success stories keep on coming. Troy Murphy and Rodney White, both of whom are now in the NBA, each attended a Butler showcase.

This is real life, though, and every player doesn't end up in the Association. Butler talks with some sadness about how he helped former Montclair High star Alto Virgil get into San Jacinto, a school that has won four juco national championships, after he didn't have the academics to get into St. Peter's, which had offered a scholarship. But Virgil was homesick and lasted only about two weeks in Texas. His mother was ill and his son was in Montclair with the baby's mother.

"Everybody was mad at me," Virgil said two years ago when he returned to play briefly at Montclair State before quitting that team. "People said, 'Alto, what are you doing home?'" "You'll never know if you're going to get homesick unless you go away from home," Ring said. "You don't want to be a  would've -could've -should've guy, so go out there. Not every kid can handle himself 1,500, 2,000 miles away. But some kids can. Some kids can see light at the end of the tunnel; some kids can only see the tunnel."

Ed Butler stands at the entry to that tunnel, hoping to show as many kids the light as possible.

This article was re-posted with permission from Adam Zagoria of the Herald News

Watch Video from the EKB Roundball Showcases