Rutgers Football and head coach Greg Schiano have made a big-time change to his staff.
Longtime Director of Sports Performance Jay Butler has been let go, Schiano announced before his annual Charity Golf Classic at Fiddler's Elbow Country Club in Bedminster.
Butler was set to enter his sixth season in his role, and 17th total year with the Scarlet Knights. He will be replaced by Spencer Brown, who was recently brought in from Dartmouth.
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"It was something I felt like we needed to do, but it was really hard," Schiano said on the decision. "Jay has been a tremendous contributor to this program, and when we were in Tampa, so we've been together for 18 years. It was just something that I felt like we needed to do, but it was really, really hard."
Butler first joined Rutgers' staff in 2001, Schiano's first year at the helm. Like his successor, Butler had also come from the Big Green as the team's director of speed, strength, and conditioning. He served as the Scarlet Knights' strength and conditioning coordinator from 2001-04, before being named the program's head football strength and conditioning coach from 2004-11. The two also overlapped at Bucknell for one year, where Schiano became a standout linebacker and Butler starred at tackle.
When Schiano became the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012, Butler also followed, becoming the team's head strength and conditioning coach for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.
After Schiano's dismissal in Tampa Bay, Butler became the assistant head of strength and conditioning coach at IMG Academy under former head coach Billy Miller, another former assistant of Schiano's at Rutgers and with the Buccaneers.
Following his three seasons at IMG from 2017-19, Butler returned to the Scarlet Knights to become the Director of Sports Performances in 2020 after Schiano's re-hiring, holding the position until 2025.
"People don't understand that if you've never had to do those things, it's incredibly difficult," Schiano added. "Especially when he’s a friend, and I’ve watched their family grow up with our family. But the tough part of being the head coach is you have to do what you believe is right, and you’re not always correct in what you do, but you have to do what you think is right.”
Butler graduated from Bucknell in 1991 and was inducted into the Hillsborough High School Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013.
Brown joined the program in the spring as an assistant strength and conditioning coach, and now becomes the Director of Sports Performance in place of Butler.
He spent over a decade with the Big Green, serving as the program's Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, also named the athletic department's Director of Strength and Conditioning in 2016. At Dartmouth, he worked with the football, Nordic skiing, men's tennis, and women's tennis teams.
Before his time in Hanover, New Hampshire, Brown spent three years at Moravian College as the school's Director of Strength and Conditioning and Fitness from 2012-14. He also worked as the Assistant Director of Sports Performance at Lafayette from 2010-12, where he managed the daily operation of a 4,000-square-foot facility for 14 Leopards' sport teams.
Brown also played linebacker for the Leopards from 2006-09, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology and sociology. He is a native of Florida, graduating from J.W. Mitchell High School in New Port Richey in 2006. He earned All-State second team honors twice in football and was a two-time state qualifier in weightlifting.
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