Jimmy Butler has been lighting it up for the Miami Heat in this year’s playoffs. His meteoric rise to the top saw him cross paths with Jordan Leslie, back in high school.
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Even the most ardent NFL fans would be hard-pressed to remember the name of Jordan Leslie. After all, the wide receiver went undrafted after entering the 2015 NFL Draft.
Leslie bounced around a few practice squads before getting a very short run with the Cleveland Browns. His final NFL bow was with the Denver Broncos, who released him in August 2018.
Leslie currently runs a sports academy in Arizona, having retired from professional sports nearly 4 years ago.
How did Jimmy Butler become friends with Jordan Leslie?
Jimmy Butler was born in trying circumstances, as his biological father abandoned his mother soon during his infancy. Butler’s mother Londa suffered from drug addiction, hardening Jimmy’s childhood experiences.
In a fit of anger once, when Jimmy was just 13 years old, Londa drove him out of her household. “I don’t like the look of you. You gotta go,” she said to the youngster.
Despite being of a tiny age, Jimmy grew up quickly, bouncing around his friends’ houses and earning for himself. He also became a star player on his high school basketball team in Tomball, where he got noticed by Leslie (a freshman) before his senior year.
Jordan challenged Jimmy to a 3-point shootout, soon befriending the latter. After learning that Butler was homeless, Leslie offered to take him into his own household alongside 6 other siblings with his step-father and mother Michelle Lambert.
“They accepted me into their family. And it wasn’t because of basketball. She [Michelle Lambert, Leslie’s mother] was just very loving. She just did stuff like that. I couldn’t believe it.”
As fate would have it, both of them became college sports stars. Butler attended a year of JUCO before earning a transfer to Dwyane Wade’s alma mater Marquette. Leslie played at UTEP (Tim Hardaway Sr’s old college) for 3 years before transferring to BYU.
Butler still has a relationship with his biological mother
Despite his unceremonious banishment from the household, Jimmy maintains a close relationship with Londa. He believes that it wasn’t her fault for treating him that way, considering the difficulties she was going through:
“You learn everybody makes mistakes. I make mistakes. That means you don’t hold a grudge against anybody. I’ve grown up so much because this game has taught me you don’t take anything for granted. You respect everybody. You make sure everybody feels wanted. That’s more than Tomball could give me.”
