Girls’ basketball: Bladensburg Coach Lester Butler notches 300th career victory

With a 54-27 home win over Oxon Hill on Tuesday night, Bladensburg girls’ basketball Coach Lester Butler notched his 300th career victory — all of them at the Prince George’s County school.

Students held multi-colored sign (“Go Coach Butler”) and he was presented with a plaque, a commemorative basketball and a cake with his picture.

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“The opportunity to spend 22 years at the same place means the most to me,” he said.

Butler, a 1967 Spingarn graduate and a former UDC football and basketball player, started coaching high school basketball as a girls’ assistant at Friendly for five years. He then was named head coach at Bladensburg in 1989.

Butler, 63, guided the Mustangs to a 25-1 record and the Maryland 3A championship in 1993. From 1991 to 1995, the Mustangs went 90-12. They were state finalists in 1995 and semifinalists in 2001. His career record currently stands at 300-213.

In his 22 years at the school, Butler has seen much change: the shifting of dominant programs across the county, the loss of talent to private schools and the changing demographics of his own community.

“Things change because you have to be able to adapt to a new administration from the AD to the principal and what they want,” Butler said. “When they asked me to come there, they wanted me to build a program and that’s what I tried to do. I tried to get young ladies prepared for college.”

In Tuesday’s win, senior guard India Perkins scored a team-high 12 points to lead the Mustangs (8-11, 7-8) past Oxon Hill.

Butler said his health is good and hopes to continue coaching for the foreseeable future.

“It has been a blessing because I haven’t had any illnesses that have kept from coaching,” he said. “But coaching is more strenuous because it’s primarily becoming a 365-day sport because they’re playing AAU and summer league.”