Origin Stories :: Dana Butterfield

Dana Butterfield is feeling good these days. Really good. And that's great news if you're Dana Butterfield or a fan of the Montana softball program.

Because she's good. Really good. "I'd say I'm at my peak right now, which is really cool," she says.

Go back to her sophomore year at Glencoe High in Hillsboro, Ore., when she went 20-3 and had 254 strikeouts in 151 2/3 innings to earn Pacific Conference Pitcher of the Year honors.

That's the pitcher Montana coach Melanie Meuchel saw when Butterfield was humming it for the Northwest Bullets, the player she knew she had to have in a Grizzly uniform.

"She has good mechanics, she has power, she has a ton of break on a couple pitches. And she truly loves to compete," says Meuchel.

"You can see it in her eyes and in her approach. She'll pick up a mile or two per hour here and there in the most heated of times."

Of course, there have been few witnesses who can attest to that since Butterfield's dominant sophomore campaign. You can blame COVID, but you can also credit it for forcing her to stop and address the injuries that have ranged over the years from nagging to how did she play through that?

"I've had injuries my whole softball career. It's been interesting. It's been challenging," she says before detailing one that would have most people seeking out the nearest recliner or medical professional, not picking up a softball.

"I was having issues with my rib and my back. It kept coming out of place. It was a subluxation, so it wasn't fully dislocated. It just kind of twisted. It was super painful even just breathing sometimes."

When softball took a hiatus in 2020, like most everything did, she turned her focus to her health and physical therapy and her return to being the full Dana. She played outfield her senior year, took last summer off from travel ball, all with a goal of arriving on campus in August at 100 percent.

She did.

"Now things are awesome. I'm in a really good place. I'm really thankful for the timing of it and the healing that took place throughout my body," she says. "It would have been just awful coming in with something messed up."

She's got things dialed in physically, which will have her sharing the ball this season with sophomore Allie Brock and junior Maggie Joseph, a transfer from California.

"She could find a lot of innings. I kind of expect her to. I want her to. She's talented enough," says Meuchel. "All three have the ability to take things on their shoulders."

Butterfield threw all fall, mostly in practice, a few times in the team's limited exhibition outings. If you hadn't been looking for her, you might have missed her. Your loss.

"I thought she got out and threw the ball, pitched the ball, threw it with a lot of confidence and got outcomes she wanted," says Meuchel. "She was difficult for people to square up."

You listen to Meuchel go on about Butterfield and it's just … different. And you just need to know: Is Butterfield more self-assured than most freshman pitchers Meuchel has worked with over the past nearly two decades?

"Yes." That's Meuchel's complete, simple and straightforward answer. There is no equivocation. And you might start creating your own mental picture of Butterfield, as an alpha inside the circle, confident in the abilities that she's earned over the years through her own dedication and hard work.

And we're here to erase that picture and ask you to consider the following contrast: a fierce competitor who pitches without any self-imposed pressure or worries. It's a construct that doesn't quite add up or make sense.

Or: A player who wants nothing more than to strike you out, to send you back to your dugout after a three-and-out, three pitches, sit down! But if you hit a walk-off home run against her? She won't lug it around as baggage. She won't let it affect her mood and allow it to change who she is.

There is just more to her than that. A lot more.

"I think about it like this: I can't use my gift without the Lord because He gave it to me. I get to go out there and do it with Him," says Butterfield, who owns and celebrates and proclaims her faith and beliefs like few others her age are willing to do.

She's chapter 5 from the book of Matthew in walking form: "Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

That's Butterfield inside the circle: "He's right beside me, so I have the freedom to just have fun and enjoy and not worry about the outcome. Obviously, I work hard to have good outcomes, but I don't worry about the bad ones because they don't define me.

"I know I'm doing something bigger than just playing softball or just pitching. It's always for something bigger. The gifts and talents He gave me, I'm free to walk in that. I don't have any pressure or any worries, because I'm not identified by anybody but Him."

It wasn't always like that. A few years ago, a loss would have eaten at her for the rest of the day, had her tossing and turning in bed. "I thought pitching was everything, and I'd get so frustrated if I had a bad outcome.

"A lot of people put a lot of pressure on themselves and it totally consumes them. They are defined by the outcomes of the games and how they do. They let all those outcomes weigh on their shoulders."

It's the burden that her parents, both of whom were college athletes themselves at Humboldt State, Chris in football, Dawna in softball, tried to keep their two girls from taking on.

You're not as great as the latest victory and you don't need to get down, down, down about the latest defeat. It just doesn't have to be that way. Unload it. Remember who you are outside of the sport.

"She knew what her value was, and it was not in how well she pitched," says her dad. "Dawna worked very, very hard on that. Our kids' value had nothing to do with softball."

That their dad was their coach for years made him own it as well, a task made tougher by his own competitiveness that led him to the Humboldt State Hall of Fame as an offensive lineman and an eight-year career in the Arena Football League after graduating.

"It was tough when you're coaching. But when we got in the car, it was over," he says.

Dana embraced it like never before during the pandemic. So much so that it had her wondering if playing softball in college was really what she was being called to do.

"During the pandemic, God really got ahold of her. It was really cool. With a reignition of her faith, she started to question everything," says Chris. "She's involved in church, she's involved with worship. She wondered, hey, is (softball) what God wants me to do?"

But the gift she'd been blessed with was always her right arm and an athleticism to put it to powerful use on the softball field.

She self-taught herself how to play the piano by watching YouTube videos when nobody else was home. Just because she now uses that in a worship setting doesn't make her softball talents any less reverential in comparison. They are both gifts to give to the world, to celebrate, to be thankful for.

To not use it would be the real transgression.

"We had to let her know, God would not give you this gift if He did not want you to use it. You can use it for Him. I'm sure she had a lot of prayer time about it," says Chris. "God doesn't give people things He doesn't want them to use."

Chris and Dawna brought their gifts to Humboldt State in Northern California. He was local, from Arcata, she was from Southern Cal. He was an offensive lineman, she was a catcher. They met when she was working at the snack bar at the athletic complex.

He stopped by for popcorn and got a wife out of the transaction, a healthy return on his investment. "I thought she was pretty darn cute. I asked her out. After probably three weeks I knew I was going to marry her," says Chris.

He would go on to have an eight-year career in the Arena Football League, playing for the Portland Forest Dragons, the Oklahoma Wranglers and the Los Angeles Avengers. That's where they were when Dana was born, three years after her older sister, Taylor.

Both parents feel like they've been there and done that as athletes, the benefit of feeling like you've maxed out what you could do with your own talents. And that makes them somewhat unique as spectators. They don't fit the mold. They have nothing left to prove through their offspring.

"We've never tried to live through them, because my husband and I both had our careers," says Dawna, whose older daughter played softball at Northwest Nazarene in Idaho. "We can sit back and enjoy them instead of being wrapped up in it.

"We're not trying to get anything for ourselves out of watching them. We want our kids to be out there because it's what they want to do, what they love to do. This is their deal now, not ours."

Like the bats that swing at her pitches, there were hits and misses when Dana got her start in sports as a youngster, now in Oregon, where the family has lived ever since that final season with the Avengers in Los Angeles, house-flippers and self-employed owners of Del Rey Properties.

Softball and basketball? Home runs. Soccer? Not so much. After all, she is her dad's daughter, and she grew up around his sport, whether he was playing it, coaching it or watching it.

"Her coaches had to tell her it wasn't okay for her to drop her shoulder and take out the other players. She just thought, okay, I need this ball and that girl is in the way, so she would drop her shoulder and lay them out," says Dawna. "They put her in goal instead. It was safer for others."

Her daughter adds, "I hated the running. And I was a little too aggressive. They would tell me to go after the ball and not the person. I was super feisty."

And she didn't have a lot of patience, not when she was stuck at catcher, the position her mom had played, and the balls her pitchers threw more often than not ended up at the backstop, coming in just a bit outside. Or high. Or landing halfway to the plate. It was more time chasing balls than playing ball.

It was more than Dana Butterfield could take. If that was the best they could do, she would start pitching. "I was like, I'm going to be the pitcher and solve this problem. And it worked out," she says.

The benefit of being the Butterfield girls is they had parents who knew what it would take and what they would have to do once they made that type of commitment.

"They told both of us that if you want to do this, you have to put in the work. And if you put in the work, you can pretty much do whatever you set your mind to," Dana says.

It's the approach Chris Butterfield took as he pursued his dream of playing in the NFL. It wasn't for a lack of trying or effort or dedication. It was for a lack of height.

"When you're six-foot-nothing, not a lot of GMs are going to take a chance on you," he says. His agent talked to someone in the Raiders organization, who liked Butterfield but feared the wrath of late owner Al Davis. "Hey man, I like the guy, but if I sign him, the old man would fire me."

Instead of the NFL, he landed in the Arena Football League. He would play on for eight more years. "It took me a while to grow up," he says. "The first three or four years it was fun. I made some money, substitute taught in the offseason and coached.

"The last four years wasn't bad. I made more money than a Triple-A baseball player. Full benefits, a 401(k). It was fun but it wasn't retirement-type of money, so I had to grow up at some point."

As he coached at the high school level, he preached to his players: Play everything you can. Learn how to compete. It's the same lesson he brought to parenting.

"We always exposed our kids to as much as we could. Music, art, whatever. But softball was in their blood," he says.

And his youngest wanted to pitch. "Okay," he told her after she announced she was done chasing balls and would be the one throwing them from now on, "but here's what it's going to take. We knew pitchers had to do twice as much work."

He would set up empty soda cans in the backyard and give his daughter $20 every time she knocked one over. He had to stop. She was going to bankrupt him.

When she was 8, she was at a local field throwing with other pitchers. Dawna was one of her coaches at the time. A car stopped. Someone got out and jumped over the fence. Even from a distance, even at the age of 8, Dana Butterfield had caught the eye of Katie Sutherland-Finch.

Butterfield could have melted. OMG!!! That's her!!!

Sutherland-Finch was the star pitcher at Glencoe High and soon would be pitching for Cal in the Pac-12. As a sophomore in 2015 she would go 19-11 and post a 3.93 ERA. She had a 2.68 ERA as a senior. But on this day, she wanted to know who this 8-year-old was. And could she work with her, give her lessons?

"Dana already knew who she was, so that was a lot of fun. She was kind of giddy about it," says Dawna. Adds Chris, "(Sutherland-Finch) was the cat's meow around here as far as pitching went."

She played for her dad on the Oregon Thunder, but she outgrew it. She needed to be around the best teammates she could find, be exposed to a different level of coaching, a higher level of competition.

"He said, 'I want you to be coached by other people, not play daddy-ball your whole life,'" Dana says. "When he did coach me, it was some of the most fun I had playing. But I'm glad they sent me to a higher program than I was in."

First it was Northwest Batbusters. Then the Northwest Bullets, a travel-ball team that's been a gold mine of talent, some obvious, some more hidden gems, for Meuchel and the Grizzlies over the years.

For all the healthy perspective the Butterfields have when it comes to watching their girls play softball, that doesn't mean there aren't some nerves. They were there for Taylor, when she played outfield. But daughter as star pitcher? Yikes! That's something totally different.

"We have an outfielder and it's definitely a lot less stressful," says Dawna. "(Having a pitcher) is stressful because you hear people talking and everybody's looking at your child to succeed.

"You kind of feel that pressure for them. But we know they are going to give it their all and be as competitive as they possibly can be, so we try to sit back and enjoy it."

Meuchel saw Butterfield for the first time throwing for the Northwest Bullets. She knew she wanted her to be a Grizzly but she couldn't yet reach out to her, her hands tied by the recruiting calendar set by the NCAA.

It would be a more random occurrence that landed Butterfield in Missoula, or even Montana, for the first time in her life the summer after her sophomore year. "Two teammates were like, we're going to (Montana's) camp, you should come. I thought, why not?" she says.

Having an older sister who had gone through the recruiting process left younger sister with some valuable lessons learned. Keep your options open. Look into every program out there before making up your mind. Whatever you do, don't rush it.

Dana Butterfield mostly failed on all of the above.

"I didn't really do any of that," she says, so drawn as she was to everything Montana had to offer. "We were praying that it would be a smooth, easy recruiting process. Wherever God wants to place me, let that happen.

"Everything fell into place when I came here. I was like, I know this is where I'm supposed to be. I didn't feel the need to look anyplace else. This fulfilled all the criteria that I was looking for in a school."

Camp was camp and based mostly at Grizzly Softball Field. Still, she fell for the coaches, the players on the team who were working as instructors, the facility, the setting. That fall she returned for her official visit, to get the full picture of student-athlete life.

"I remember when they went on a tour of campus and looked at the weight room and the facilities and were walking around, Dana's face lit up," says Dawna. "She was so excited to be a part of it. She felt like she was at home from the get-go."

And sometimes it's just that easy, like a guy walking over to the snack bar, meeting someone, getting to know her and that's it. Game over. Everyone comes out a winner.

"I knew she was, skills-wise, someone I wanted as part of our program," says Meuchel. "Then getting to know her and the depth of her, it solidified that this is a person who will excel, elevate and fit in very well.

"I'm glad she's finally here at Montana. She has so much talent. I can't wait to continue to see her growth and be a part of her journey."

Butterfield claims she hates being the center of attention in any area of her life, but she loves being a pitcher. But it's not for Hey everybody, look at me! reasons.

"I love having control of the ball. I love having the control to get outs," she says. "I love being able to zone into that lane with your catcher and it's just you two and just having fun, doing what you've been gifted with, using it freely with no stress because there is no pressure on it."

But what about the strikeouts? Isn't that a rush? "It's the best. It's so much fun," says the future nurse, just like her older sister, a career chosen to serve others and make a difference.

Not that she would have put it on herself anyway, but she comes in without a lot of pressure to perform, the benefit of being a cog in a Division I staff.

"I don't have to do it by myself. A lot of years in high school and sometimes in travel ball, it was just me. I knew I had to do it because the job needed to be done," she says.

"It's amazing to come in and have a team of pitchers to be able to share this. Each person brings something different to the mound. We all have something different but it's all amazing."

If she's asked to sit out an entire weekend while Brock and Joseph get the ball and the innings, she's good with that. If she's called on to start the first and third games of a three-game series, she'll go out and try to dominate.

She'll do her best to help Montana win, however she's asked to help the cause, but what happens on the field stays between the lines. Always. Not that winning isn't fun, but it doesn't make her a different person than she was when the opening pitch was thrown.

"I'm going to contribute whatever they need me to contribute to the team," she says. "Playing time and how often you throw, I have a lot of peace with that. It doesn't define who I am as a person. Whatever my role is, I'm going to embrace it and give whatever I'm doing 100 percent."

To do anything less would be to waste the gift. "I was a junior when I gave my heart to the Lord and started following Him. That's when my life changed. It's been the best since then. I see the purpose in everything I do. It's pretty cool."

In other words, Dana Butterfield is feeling pretty good these days. Really good.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Allie Brock

Dana Butterfield

Maggie Joseph

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