MIAMI SHORES, Fla.—Replacing a school’s wins leader is never easy, but Barry University has a great candidate to try in Butch Estes who takes over the helm of the Buccaneer men’s basketball program.
“I want to thank athletic director Mike Covone and the administration for giving me the opportunity to lead the men’s basketball program at Barry University,” Estes said. “I also want to acknowledge and express my appreciation to coach Cesar Odio for his dedication and commitment to this program. It was under his guidance that the team rose to national recognition and prominence. My staff and I look forward to working hard to continue this tradition.”
Estes brings over 30 years of coaching experience, though this will be his first foray into NCAA Division II. He comes to Barry after an extremely successful stint at Palm Beach State College. He led the Panthers to an 80-14 mark in three seasons, including a 29-3 run last year, the best mark in school history.
Estes graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he played freshman basketball and was a student assistant coach under the legendary coach, Dean Smith. He was a graduate assistant coach while he earned his master’s degree in administrative education at The Citadel.
After completing his degree in 1973, Estes took assistant coaching positions at East Carolina and Rice universities and moved into head coaching positions at Presbyterian College and Furman University.
In the mid 1990s, Estes left the court for five years to work for Fox Sport Net as a basketball analyst, eventually taking head coaching jobs at Guilford College and Miami-Dade Community College. He did a brief tenure at the University of Miami as assistant coach in 2006, and in 2007, he moved to the Seattle area to support his wife’s career and accepted an assistant coach position at Seattle University. He took over a struggling program at Shoreline College in 2008 and led them from worst to first in his two years in control.
Estes holds a 443-309 record as a head coach, 270-243 at the four-year level, and has been named Coach of the Year nine times in his career, including at least once at every stop. Estes takes over at Barry for Cesar Odio who guided the Bucs to a 281-234 record over 18 seasons, including the 2006-07 Sunshine State Conference title, and three trips to the NCAA Division II Tournament, before moving into athletic administration this year.