LeRoy Butler gets his gold jacket, ready for the Hall of Fame

CANTON, Ohio (WBAY) - The stage is set. Green Bay Packers safety LeRoy Butler will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, Saturday morning just after 11 o’clock, Green Bay time.

Fridy night, Butler received his Hall of Fame threads, the iconic gold jacket.

Butler won’t have to wait long Saturday. He’ll be the first member of the Class of 2022 presented for enshrinement.

His wife, Genesis, and friend and former teammate, Gilbert Brown, will share that honor. Then LeRoy, who has never met a microphone he didn’t like, will step up to the mic and has 8 minutes to deliver a speech that has been completed for years.

“2005 -- 2004 or 2005 -- my mom and I worked on my speech, and it’s done,” Butler told us. “She always told me, ‘Get in and, one, thank the people as a group, because you can’t think everybody, but you say your family, your teammates. Get in and out.’ But me and my mom agreed that I would have the shortest speech in Hall of Fame history.”

We asked another Green Bay Packers player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame how difficult it will be for Butler to deliver his speech within the 8-minute time limit.

“Yeah, LeRoy will go over,” quarterback Brett Favre said with a smile. “He’s got too much B.S. in him. But he’ll be entertaining, there is no question about it.”

Butler told our Chris Roth the first time he read through the speech it was 12 minutes. He’d have to cut 4.

“Umm, no. I’m betting the over,” Favre laughed.

Butler lost his mom four years ago. The other two people he wishes were still alive to see this moment are his college coach, Bobby Bowden, and his high school coach in Jacksonville, Corky Rodgers. Butler said they are still inside him because every time something happens his mom in his head is saying “Be normal.”

But this weekend solidifies that LeRoy Butler was not normal. He was an extraordinary football player.