The University of Northern Colorado and baseball championships became almost synonymous with the playing and coaching of Pete Butler. All-Rocky Mountain Conference football honors also went to the athlete and he received ten letters in three sports—football, basketball and baseball.
After graduation in 1931, Butler coached basketball, football and tennis at UNC. After a stint at the New Mexico School of Mines—where he served as Athletic Director, Chairman of the Language and Economics departments, and coached basketball and baseball—he returned to UNC in 1940 to coach basketball and baseball.
World War II interrupted and he served with the U.S. Navy physical education program. He then returned to UNC to coach the Bears to twenty-five consecutive years as Rocky Mountain Conference champions in baseball. His teams won 415 games and lost only 140, and they played in the NCAA playoffs thirteen times.
Butler was inducted into the American Association of College Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1968, and he was District Seven Coach-of-the-Year in 1956, 1959 and 1962.
During his UNC coaching career, his basketball teams won seven conference championships.
He retired from coaching in 1967, to devote full time to his chairmanship of the Health, Physical Education and Recreation Department at UNC. He then retired from the University in 1973 and was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1974.
His basketball teams won seven conference championships.