In Boston, they are calling Malcolm Butler the “patron saint of second chances.”  Butler is the undrafted rookie and unlikely hero of the Super Bowl.  His interception sealed the win for New England, but not too many people heard of Butler before the big game.

After losing focus in community college he was kicked off the football team.  He left campus and worked at a Popeyes fast food restaurant.  Then Malcolm Butler had a “life changing” summer and came back a different person.  Butler was like a lot of kids… “They need a second chance, whether it’s academics or sports or whatever,” Gene Murphy, his former coach said.

“Malcolm is a living testimony to the importance of second chances.”

Gene Murphy had spent most of Super Bowl Sunday recruiting prospective players in Mississippi.  He told them about one of his players who experienced something called growing up.  He told them about Malcolm Butler.  He was so busy talking to prospective players that he didn’t make it home until the second half of the Super Bowl, which he watched with his wife, Dot.

When Butler made the play that cemented his place in New England history, Gene and Dot Murphy were sitting in their living room, 1,432 miles away from Boston.  They just smiled at each other, knowing that life is about second chances, and that a young man they both believed in had come to embody all that and more.

Breakaway Outreach exists to show at-risk youth and children that there is a God of second chances.  He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to give us the hope of another chance.  Thank you for partnering with us to make that hope a reality in so many kids’ lives.