Clemson’s Amanda Butler adopted 2 boys. How it’s changed her life, coaching outlook
Amanda Butler gathered her Clemson women’s basketball team together for what they thought was a typical post-practice film session. It was February at the Swann Pavilion practice facility on Clemson’s campus, and the Tigers were nearing the end of a difficult 2019-20 season.
After leading Clemson to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than 15 years in her first season as the head coach in 2018-19, Clemson was in the midst of an 8-23 (3-15 in the ACC) campaign in Year 2.
Still, effort and attentiveness weren’t problems for Butler’s squad during the trying year, and as the team gathered to watch film on its upcoming opponent, Butler had the full attention of her players.
“I just brought them over and said, ‘Hey, there’s one more thing that we really need to go over.’ The team was all sitting there on the floor wondering what was going on,” Butler recalled. “I was about to cry, which they don’t see very often. They thought something was wrong.”
In reality, nothing was wrong. In fact, this was a celebration.
Butler and her wife, Janna Magette, had an announcement to make — their family was expanding and the couple was adopting its second son.
The plan was for their first son — Nehemiah Butler — to tell the team about Lincoln Riley Butler on the practice floor before Janna and Lincoln made a FaceTime video call from Arizona. But as Amanda has learned during her more than three years as a parent, kids sometimes have other ideas. With Nehemiah suffering from stage fright and Amanda too emotional to talk, Janna and Lincoln took over the call and delivered the exciting news.
“The team didn’t know at all. And the reason why was not that we were hiding it, but there is still that risk as you go through the process, there are failed adoptions and it may not come to fruition. So we were very private about it until we knew everything was going to work out,” Butler said. “When they finally saw the baby they were like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It was a very cool and memorable moment that we’ll be telling Lincoln about one day.”
Adopting Nehemiah and now Lincoln has been life-changing in so many ways for Amanda and Janna, and Amanda has no doubt that it’s made her a better coach and a better person.
“When I sit down and meet parents of people that could be joining our family, and I tell them there’s no greater privilege than caring for someone else’s child, I think that comes from a place of knowing this,” Amanda said. “There’s the intellectual knowing, but you have a level of knowing that’s emotional and mental and experience based that you don’t have until you have your own children. And I’m really thankful for it because ultimately it’s making me a better coach, all of the things that I’m experiencing as a mom.”
Why adoption
Butler and Magette both grew up in close-knit families with siblings, and throughout their relationship, they agreed that they wanted to have children when the time was right. They began exploring the adoption process when Butler was the head coach at Florida and adopted Nehemiah in November of 2016 during Butler’s final season with the Gators.
When Nehemiah’s birth mother got in touch with Butler and Magette in the fall of 2019 to let the couple know that she was pregnant and was interested in the adoption process again, the couple felt like it was a sign from God that it was time to grow their family.
Adopting was the only method Butler and Magette considered for having children.
“I just think it’s a really special way to create a family. In our modern world, there are a lot of different ways that you can do that through science,” Butler said, referencing surrogacy. “The scientific route to me just did not ring as true as being able to provide a home for a child that otherwise is not going to have one. It was just always something that was very interesting to me, just the thought of adoption. And heartbreaking also the thought that there are children in the world that don’t have parents.”
Once Butler and Magette started looking into the adoption process, it didn’t take them long to learn that it is an elaborate one. They did research online before meeting with a family attorney. The attorney referred the couple to an adoption agency.
From there, a home study was performed to ensure that the environment would be suitable to raise a child, and Butler and Magette then connected with another attorney, who helped them throughout the process.
“One of the really cool things about adoption is the people who work in that arena are just what I discovered to be really, really just good folks, great hearts, in it for the children,” Butler said. “Really trying to do their jobs really well because they understand the gravity and the magnitude of what they are doing.”
Butler and Magette were interested in adopting a newborn and eventually formed a portfolio. As cases would come up where birth mothers were interested in the adoption process, the agency and attorney would work together to see if there was a match.
In the fall of 2016 there was.
Becoming parents
Butler and Magette ended up being paired with a woman in Arizona, who was pregnant and was interested in giving up her child for adoption.
Butler was trying to juggle being ready for her first child while also going through the 2016-17 season as the head coach at Florida. The Gators beat Temple on Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016 and Butler and Magette were in church in Gainesville the following day on high alert, knowing that their son could be born at any time.
“We were in church and we got an email. We got a notification that his birth mother had gone into labor and gone to the hospital,” Butler recalled. “In the middle of the service we very quietly got up and and walked out and got in the car. ... We immediately got to our phones and started switching around and got Janna on the next flight. She was there not when he was born but that same night, and we’ve never been apart since then.”
Butler and Magette introduced Nehemiah to the Florida basketball team in a very similar method to the way they introduced Lincoln to the Clemson basketball team nearly three and a half years later.
The Gators were preparing to play Northwestern in a tournament in Evanston, Illinois, on Friday, Nov. 25, and the night before the game, Butler gathered her team together following their Thanksgiving meal for a little extra film study.
“I said to the team, ‘Hey, there’s just one more thing that I need to show you guys just to make sure we’re really good to go for Friday.’ … I couldn’t talk. I was crying. They were like, ‘What’s going on?’” Butler said, fighting back tears as she relived the moment.
“I just said, ‘Hey, there’s something we’ve got to tell you guys.’ Then I was done. I couldn’t talk anymore. I was about to cry. And so then Ryan (Gensler), my video coordinator, Ryan pulls up the projector but it was actually Janna on FaceTime, and she was talking to them. … She said, ‘We have a new addition to the family.’ And they went nuts. It was really cool.”
The moment was not only emotional for Butler but also for her players.
“The next 20 minutes we were just staring at the screen like, ‘Oh my gosh he’s so beautiful.’ We just were in awe and fell in love with him at that moment,” said Dyandria Anderson, who played for Butler at Florida and is now a grad assistant at Clemson.
“For me it’s crazy to see because I’ve seen him since he was like hours old. I met him and literally held him in my hands when he was barely a week old. Now to see him running around talking, knowing what he’s talking about, it’s crazy to me but I absolutely love him. To me he’s like my little brother that I’ve always wanted. He’s the sweetest kid, and I’m blessed to be able to have him in my life.”
Fitting in
Nehemiah is an integral part of the Clemson women’s basketball family, and now Lincoln will be as well.
Lincoln was born near the end of this past season and only attended one practice, but Nehemiah has been around the practice facility almost daily during the past three seasons and travels frequently with the team for games.
Magette has a flexible schedule, which allows her to watch after Nehemiah and now Lincoln on road trips or at practices.
A former college coach herself, Magette is the founder and CEO of GoFollowLead, a company that “aims to develop strong, authentic leaders through nurtured and trained followership,” according to its website.
Magette has a doctorate in leadership and also works as a professor at Clemson.
“We kind of operate in the same fashion. Janna’s background is also in coaching and in college athletics. So she understands my schedule very, very well, probably better than I understand her schedule. And we make it work,” Butler said. “It’s just like anything. You communicate and you try to plan well, which is definitely her strength and not mine. ... We all do as many things together as we can.”
Nehemiah being around the team so much has allowed him to develop a close relationship with several of Butler’s players.
The Clemson team views him as a little brother, playing with him and watching after him while he’s at the basketball facility and going over to Butler and Magette’s house to hang out and spend time with him away from the court.
“When we go over to the house he plays with everybody,” said Kobi Thornton, who led the Tigers in scoring this past season before being selected by the Atlanta Dream in the third round of the WNBA Draft.
“Whenever he goes to bed at night he has a list of people he prays for. Any time we’re on that list, Coach Butler texts us and tells us. It just means so much to know we’re on his prayer list and how much our relationship has grown. Not only him, but Coach Butler as well. It’s pretty special.”
When Butler is on the sidelines she’s a fiery competitor — yelling directions, motivating her team and going after officials, when necessary. But when she’s with Nehemiah and Lincoln she shows off a different side of her personality.
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“One day after practice Janna brought Lincoln. I was shooting free throws. ... We looked over and we saw Coach Butler holding Lincoln,” Thornton said. “Both of them bring out this side of Coach Butler that I don’t think everyone gets to see. You see the competitor and how genuine she is. There’s a very, very soft side of Coach Butler that people don’t see often. It’s the best thing ever to see.”
Going from an only child to having a little brother has been a bit of an adjustment for Nehemiah as he has learned that a gentle touch is a better way to show love than a hard squeeze.
Being tender at times instead of aggressive is also something Butler has learned from her kids and carried over to her coaching style.
“It’s immeasurable, I think, the way that it has changed me. I think it’s definitely made me more patient as a coach,” Butler said. “When you actually have your children and you pause for a second and think about someone else caring for your child, it helps you take a deep breath and be a little bit more patient.”
Adding another kid to the mix has also been an adjustment for Butler and Magette.
“We could double-team Nehemiah ... but you’ve got to play a lot of man-to-man defense when there’s two of them,” Butler said. “We’re a lot more ‘divide and conquer.’ Actually, it’s probably a lot more divide. I don’t know that we’re doing a lot of conquering. We’re getting conquered very often.”
But for kids who needed parents and a couple that is growing from having kids, it couldn’t be working out better for all parties involved. And who knows, maybe another kid could be added to the mix down the road.
“I think two is a really, really good number. Janna just walked in the room and heard me say that and laughed out loud,” Butler said. “A table for four is a really good kitchen setup. It’s good for transporting people, dinner reservations, all of that. But I would never say never, just because I think adoption has just opened our eyes to needs that we think we can meet.”
This story was originally published May 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
