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Bill McCartney - Introduction
In the early 1980's, the University of Colorado was having a very difficult time
with their football team, and were looking for the right coach to come in and turn things around. In 1982, Bill McCartney was hired to do just that. He was an assistant coach with Michigan State and seemed destined to be the
head football coach there when Bo Schembechler retired.
A group of businessmen in Colorado has formed an organization called the Flatirons club to be major supporters and encouragers of the
University's athletic program. The announcement of Bill having been hired was made to the Flatirons club at a special reception to meet the coach. We were extremely excited and enthusiastic about the prospects of a new coach
being able to help us get back on a winning schedule. I'll never forget when Bill said, he'd like to be part of an effort to help build young men, and he was sure that as they did that they would win their share of games.
When I met Bill and Lyndi, they were both very humble, and while confident about the opportunity, were almost overcome by the immensity of the challenge of turning the football program around. The
first couple of years that Bill was there we only won 2 or 3 games and a number of the fans were restless. However, every time I saw Bill, he remained very positive and very enthusiastic. He never became defensive but continued
to remind us that they were rebuilding the program and that it is not possible to do it overnight. He had great confidence in the athletes that they were attracting to the University, and as a vote of confidence, the athletic
director renewed his contract even in the middle of a 1-10 season.
Bill was very willing to become involved in the community at every opportunity he could, and as a result I saw him at a
lot of FCA functions, C.U. functions and he was always very consistent with his pleasant, personable, enthusiastic, humble self. He had a wonderful countenance about him, which was very positively infectious.
From 1985 through 1989 he had some of the most difficult family and personal situations happen to him that I have ever witnessed a twentieth century man going through, but he continued to stay
strong in his faith and the summer of 1989 I asked him to come out to San Diego and speak at an FCA fundraising banquet we were having March 30th, 1990. In spite of his bad back almost keeping him from coming, he gave one of
his most inspiring messages I ever heard. The next morning as I was taking him to the airport he said he would really like me to pray for a special men's group that he and Dave Wardell, a friend I had initiated into our
fraternity 31 years before, were just trying to get started. I asked him what they were going to call the group and he said they didn't have a name. I gave him a High Ground and Associates newspaper that we had put together
here in San Diego, as he was getting out of my car. Two weeks later Bill called to say that one of the articles in the paper I had given him, gave him the name for their new men's group and it was going to be called
"Promise Keepers."
In 1994, Bill resigned from a lifetime contract, one of the first ones ever signed by a major University, after having coached the University of Colorado to a
national championship in 1990. After he had been named the number one coach in the U.S. by UP, AP and all the coaches' polls. A reasonable person would say why would anybody resign a lifetime no cut contract, and Bill's very
simple and plain explanation was when your job gets in the way of your family and you're about to lose the two most important women in your life, your daughter and your wife, then I had to get my priorities in their right order
and resign from my job. Many of us prayed for Bill and Lyndi during that time, and still pray for Bill and Lyndi every day of my life. We know the power of prayer.
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