Former Packers safety and Spectrum News 1 Roundtable panelist LeRoy Butler will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame Saturday in Canton, Ohio. This is part one of my interview that can be seen this week on Spectrum News 1.

Krause: Congratulations first of all. So let’s go back to the start. Jacksonville, Florida. Tell me about growing up.

Butler: Dennis, I’ve been knowing you for 30 years, but people who don’t know me, I don’t think they really believe where I came from. It’s hard to believe. Because poverty, all capital letters. I mean violence, every day. At one point, they averaged a homicide for 38 straight days. I mean, it was a rough place to bring up five kids. But my mom was amazing. Although we were in poverty and experienced poverty mentally, we felt rich because we had life and we had each other. My mom was just truly amazing as far as, (raising) a special needs kid like me. I told her I wanna play football. She said, why? I said mainly because I need 10 other guys to help me. And she thought it was a great idea, so I just stayed focused on that. But it was rough. I wonder why God chose me to navigate these rough waters. Because it was a place that was so bad, they eventually tore them down because the crime was so bad.

Krause: How difficult is this without your mother (who has passed away)?

Butler: She always would give me these life lessons and... July 28 is her birthday. She would always tell me, if you ever get emotional, you put your hand over your mouth or you think of something funny. But from July 28 until my induction and my enshrinement, every day on my social media, I’m going to release something my mom told me. It’s hard, because I remember when Woodson knocked on my door (to tell him he made the Hall of Fame.) Dennis, I thought about in 2009, she said let’s work on your speech. I said, wait I’m not even in yet. She said, you’re going to be in and so just be prepared. So we worked on the outline of my speech back then. So, it’s easier for me to kind of shape it around eight to 10 minutes. I’ve seen some of the speeches go 53 minutes, 47 minutes, two hours. I want to know why was that important to her, and she said the reason why is, if you go too long, people will forget about what you’ve said already. And then she went further. She would like to see the story of LeRoy Butler shouldn’t be the headline, it should be the story. The headline should be your teachers, your family, your kids when you have kids, teachers. I said why did you say teachers twice, mom? She said because the teacher is going to teach you to study a playbook. I said, wait a minute, they have playbooks? She said yes. Teachers are the smartest people in the world. So, she said okay. It’s the first responders, military, volunteers. They help people who they do not know, that’s the headline. When you read a story, all this is about Mr.​ Butler, so that’s how she wanted me to be.