(RNS) — Bill McCartney, a former college football coach who became one of the most influential religious figures in American life during the 1990s after founding the Promise Keepers movement, died Friday (Jan. 10).
“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Bill McCartney, beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, who left this world peacefully at the age of 84 after a courageous journey with Dementia,” his family said in a statement.
In March of 1990, not long after his University of Colorado Buffaloes missed a chance at the national championship by losing to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, McCartney hopped in a car with a friend, Dave Wardell, to drive from the university’s campus in Boulder to Pueblo, Colorado, where he was scheduled to give a speech at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes banquet.
While on the road, McCartney talked about his concerns that American men were losing their faith in God — and as a result, the nation’s families were suffering. During that drive, the idea of Promise Keepers was born.
Within a year, McCartney had grown Promise Keepers from a relatively small group of followers to a gathering of 4,000 men at the University of Colorado’s basketball arena — and along the way, had led the Buffaloes to a national championship after beating Notre Dame in a rematch. A few years later, Promise Keepers was drawing tens of thousands of worshippers to arenas and stadiums around the country — and eventually more than half a million men to the National Mall in Washington in 1997.
“Thirty years ago, he was filling up stadiums — and for f …