WARSAW – Gene Butts says he used to tell people that his favorite sport to officiate was whichever one was in season at the moment.

Butts, a highly-successful prep and college official for over half a century, admits though that baseball was probably his preferred pick when prompted to single just one out.

That was a very good thing for America’s pastime.

Butts, a 1948 Beaver Dam High graduate, will be rewarded for his years of dedication to his craft come Jan. 25. He will be one of five men inducted into the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Indianapolis.

“I’m elated to be chosen,” said Butts in a recent phone interview from Sebring, Florida, where he resides from December through April each year with his wife Carole. “It’s good to be inducted while I can still enjoy it and it tells me that perseverance does pay off.”

Butts, now 82 years young, gives you the impression that he could still don the mask and gear and call balls and strikes. The veteran of 55 years of umpiring just called it quits for good in 2005.

“It was just an accumulation of enjoyable situations,” said Butts of his long officiating career, which also earned him a spot in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010. “It was just gratifying for me to be around the kids and the coaches all those years.”

Butts, who lives in Warsaw when not in Florida, rubbed elbows with some of the state’s all-time top coaches during his long run as a high school umpire.  That list included Hall of Famers like Bill Nixon at Plymouth, Jim Reinbold of South Bend Clay and Ken Schreiber of LaPorte.

Butts, who played baseball at Manchester College, focused on baseball after he broke both ankles after falling while trimming a tree on May 31, 1977.

“That took me out of the speed sports,” said Butts. “I stayed umpiring baseball though after that.”

Butts was known as a rules aficionado and also admits that he was a pitcher’s friend behind the dish.

“The No. 1 thing for a good official is to know the rules,” Butts said. “I was a rules guru. And my philosophy was the game was for the kids and the coaches.

“I never liked umpires who took an egotistical approach to the game. I tried to be more friendly towards players and coaches. I tried to keep guys in games. I think I had one ejection in my last 10 years of umpiring.”

Butts has some kind of impressive resume when it comes to his Hall of Fame career on the diamond. He worked 35 sectionals, 24 regionals, 17 semi states and eight State Finals in his 55-year umpiring career. He also was the 2000 IHSAA Umpire of the Year and worked college games for some 45 years.

“This is definitely a big deal to me,” said Butts of being selected for the Coaches Hall of Fame. “It’s something very few people attain, especially umpires, and it does mean a lot to me.”

Butts points to working on the umpiring crew at Pan Am Games in Indianapolis in 1987, working at the Detroit Tigers Fantasy Camp in Florida and calling a game when former Argos High School and Bethel College star and current major leaguer Eric Stults was pitching as a few of the highlights of his illustrious career.

Butts, who spent the majority of his teaching career at Lincoln Elementary School in Warsaw, was a member of the first class inducted into the Kosciusko County Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010. He also served as the Athletic Director at Warsaw Community High School from 1978-82. Butts worked many a baseball game with longtime friend and colleague Gary Oxley of Etna Green.

The class of Hall of Fame inductees to be honored Jan. 25 in Indianapolis includes Butts, along with two players, a coach and a broadcaster. The distinguished group features former Major League players Kenny Lofton (East Chicago Washington High School) and Billy McCool (who was born in Batesville), along with Jack Campbell, who has coached at Chesterton High School since 1970 and Dave Niehaus, a former Seattle broadcaster, who passed away in 2010.

Butts, who doesn’t look 82,  spends his time now on the golf course a couple of times a week and in the fitness center working out.

“I fool a lot of people, who don’t think I’m 82,” joked Butts. “We’ve (him and wife Carole) have taken care of ourselves.”

Butts and his wife of 60 years Carole have two daughters in Nancy, who works at KCH, and Peggy, who lives in Anderson. He should have a big cheering section, a rarity for an umpire, at the induction Jan. 25 as he also has five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

“I owe a lot of my career to my wife Carole,” said Butts. “She was raised two girls, while I was out officiating all those games.

“I know that I had a very enjoyable career as an official. I would do it all over again that’s for sure.”