James Wallace Butts Jr. (February 7, 1905 – December 17, 1973) was an American college football player, coach, and athletics administrator.

Butts was a 1929 graduate of Mercer University where he played college football under coach Bernie Moore,[1] as well as baseball and basketball.

Butts never failed to turn out an undefeated championship team at the three high schools he coached before arriving at the University of Georgia in 1938.

Butts' assistants in his first year as head coach were Bill Hartman, Howell Hollis, Quinton Lumpkin, Jules V. Sikes, Forrest Towns, and Jennings B. Whitworth.

The 1942 Georgia team won the Rose Bowl over UCLA, finished #2 in the AP Poll, and was named a national championship by a number of selectors.

He remained as athletic director until February 1963, when he resigned after a scandal erupted over a magazine article alleging corrupt practices, which Butts stridently denied.

The court ruled in his favor in 1967, and The Saturday Evening Post was ordered to pay $3.06 million to the Butts family in damages, the largest settlement awarded at its time in history.

In 1986, Professor James Kirby of the University of Tennessee School of Law published Fumble: Bear Bryant, Wally Butts and the Great College Football Scandal, which argued that the courts had made the wrong decision.

[6] Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, athletic administration offices and sports museum at the University of Georgia, was built in honor of Butts and his predecessor as coach, Harry Mehre.