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BILL MCCARTNEY
1940-

FORMER FOOTBALL COACH, FOUNDER OF PROMISE KEEPERS

"The Game of His Life."

All his life, Bill McCartney knew he was going to be a coach. "I never saw myself doing anything else," he once told an interviewer. After graduating from the University of Missouri in 1962, McCartney coached highschool football for twelve years before landing his first collegiate position as a defensive coordinator for the University of Michigan Wolverines in 1974. By 1982, McCartney and his family were on their way to the University of Colorado, located in Boulder, where McCartney had agreed to take on the floundering Buffaloes. In his determination to rebuild the ailing football program, however, McCartney neglected to check on the status of his own family.

Life With Father

In the next few years, McCartney saw his struggling program grow stronger. In 1989 he was named Coach of the Year. In 1991, almost a decade after arriving in Boulder, he led his seemingly invincible Buffaloes to victory over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Orange Bowl. All the accolades, however, could not disguise trouble at home. One of his daughters became pregnant twice by different players on his football squad. His remaining children moved out, leaving him alone with a wife who suffered from depression. McCartney realized he had lost his way.

Promise Keepers

In 1990, struck by a vision of stadiums filled with men committed to leading Christian lives, McCartney, himself a devout Christian, founded Promise Keepers. The first conference was held in July 1991. This Christian male-only organization focuses on reestablishing the male voice and presence in American religious, family, and public life, while charging men to become better fathers, husbands, leaders, and human beings through commitment to the Seven Promises outlined in Scripture. To date, Promise Keepers boasts more than 1.5 million members nationwide. It is a movement that cuts across racial, economic, and religious boundaries. Although closely aligned with the Religious Right, Promise Keepers declares it has no political agenda. Yet, women's groups and civil liberties organizations are not so sure, claiming that the group could present a significant danger to the achievement of women's rights and civil liberties.