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For Coach McCartney, A Leap of FaithBy Johnette HowardWashington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 25, 1994; Page E01 BOULDER, COLO. -- His second-ranked football team is on a charmed run. It already authored a play for the ages this year. Now third-ranked Nebraska looms ahead Saturday. But University of Colorado Coach Bill McCartney will flatly tell you football ranks behind other things in his life. Like his religion. Personal visits from the Holy Spirit. He once said his 1982 hiring at Colorado came by "divine appointment." He has a near-apocalyptic vision of America as a nation headed down the drain because men have forgotten God, and politicians and government policies have proven ineffective in the breach, and something must be done -- fast. Or else. Four years ago McCartney and a friend had a brainstorm. While driving from Pueblo, Colo., to Boulder, they landed upon the idea of starting an all-male evangelical Christian group, a conservative revival movement they'd call Promise Keepers and power with an "army" of "God's warriors" willing to use the Bible ("God's playbook" in McCartneyspeak) against the enemy -- the enemy being? Gay rights, the abortion rights movement, some feminists, all pornography, profane TV shows or music or ... "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, we contest anything that sets itself up against Jesus Christ," McCartney preaches on "What Are Promise Keepers?", a get-acquainted cassette tape the organization distributes. About 4,200 people attended the first conference in Boulder in 1991. Three years later 230,000 men packed sites in six U.S. cities, and many men were so overcome they sobbed, hugged, swooned in the aisles, raised their hands and shouted for joy. All-male speakers urged the all-male crowds to profess absolute submission to God through Christ. They were told "feminized men" are responsible for societal dysfunction in America today, and that a "godly" man, a "real" man, a "man's" man leads a biblically informed life. Some speakers, including McCartney, quoted Scripture to support their stand on the primacy of men in households. Sometimes the men exchanged high-fives. Women are excluded from Promise Keepers leadership, policy making, accountability groups and stadium conferences because, as group co-founder Dave Wardell explains, "women's presence tend to inhibit men. "I can go home and maybe still be the same guy after a conference," Wardell says. "But if I have another guy calling up, holding me accountable, asking 'How are you treating your wife? Are you still cheating on your income taxes? Are you looking at your secretaries with lust?' it makes a difference. I don't think a woman would get in my face, go toe-to-toe with a guy, whereas a guy could tell me, 'I don't like it. And if you don't listen to me, I'll punch your lights out.' Something like that." Because of the overwhelming response to this year's first six conferences, a seventh was scheduled for Texas Stadium on Saturday in Irving, Tex. -- the same day Colorado meets Nebraska in Lincoln, Neb. The event will mark the first conference McCartney hasn't worked as the "closer" -- the last speaker on the card. On tape, McCartney always sounds like a show-stopper. He sends men winging home to their all-male support groups and families with urgent, building, shouted exhortations like, "We're men of God! We love Jesus! Nothing else matters!" McCartney the Football Coach doesn't hide any of this. Far from it. During an interview in his office last week, he talked football for 30 minutes without a single mention of God. Then an innocuous question -- an inquiry about how he weathered controversies surrounding Colorado's last national-title run in 1990 -- makes him pause, reappraise you from behind his broad desk, and answer, "Well, I have a lot of faith." And the line is akin to popping cork off a champagne bottle -- for the next 25 minutes he speaks of nothing but God and religion. For what he stands for, McCartney often gets hate mail. He has sparked protests. His utterances have moved Colorado students to pass out handbills comparing him to Adolf Hitler. He's drawn censure from the American Civil Liberties Union and Anti-Defamation League. Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.) once slammed him as "a self-appointed Ayatollah." McCartney irks non-Christians by speaking of restoring America to Jesus. He's spoken to Operation Rescue members and other anti-abortion groups. He's called gays "stark raving mad" and undeserving of the same legal rights as "people who reproduce." At a 1992 news conference he conducted at a university lectern while wearing a Colorado emblem on his shirt, he also called gays "an abomination against Almighty God" and confirmed he'd joined Colorado for Family Values, a group that supported Amendment 2, the so-called "anti-gay rights" measure recently struck down by the Colorado supreme court. University of Colorado President Judith Albino has emphasized McCartney doesn't represent the official views of the university. Colorado, a publicly funded school, also instituted a policy that might as well be called the McCartney Rule. The policy prohibits coaches or athletic administrators from conducting mandatory prayer meetings. It also requires that university employees disassociate themselves from the university when making religious speeches or presentations. Time and winning football games has helped quiet the storm. Against Nebraska on Saturday, Colorado will play for the inside track to an Orange Bowl berth, an almost-guaranteed undefeated regular season and the chance to leapfrog into the No. 1 spot in the national rankings ahead of Penn State. A second national championship in four years is a possibility. Times would appear to be good. But McCartney knows his next controversy may never be far away. He says he's not surprised people get mad when he speaks his mind. ("Scripture warns you you'll be crucified," he explains.) But asked if he ever gets surprised at what people disagree with him about, he blinks and quickly says, "I do, I do. It amazes me -- just a-ma-zes me -- the different things people believe. "I often wonder where they draw those convictions from, I really do. Because whatever I believe, I defer to what God's word says." And admissions such as that lead to the charges he's fanatical? "I am fanatical," he shoots back and smiles. "I am. "I am." Discovering God, Refining Life He grew up in Riverview, Mich., a factory town that lies down-river from Detroit. His father was a Marine drill sergeant and an auto worker. He once described his mother as someone who "lived to serve" his dad. Since getting married and fathering four children, McCartney says one of his regrets is his wife has "given up her life for me" while "I've spent my time with someone else's kids." He has publicly confessed to past problems with alcohol, his marriage and a bad temper. At age 24 he became the only high school coach Bo Schembechler ever hired for his University of Michigan staff. But even that endorsement didn't bring inner peace. He noticed a Wolverines player who exuded serenity. The player invited McCartney to a Christian athletes meeting. He was born-again the first night. That was 1974. Now, like a lot of Promise Keepers leaders, McCartney speaks happily of numerous revelations and signs from God. He "consecrated" the Buffaloes football program over to God his first day on the job. For years, he spent an hour of his daily Bible study and prayer on his knees. In his extraordinarily blunt autobiography, he repeatedly maintains the "will of God" has determined events in his life -- even the timing of cancer-stricken quarterback Sal Aunese's death on an open date for the 1989 Colorado team, "as though God had left it that way." McCartney says the inspired 11-0 regular season that followed Aunese's death in September 1989 was foreshadowed in a preseason "golden vision" by a devout friend -- his pastor and football team chaplain James Ryle. He also writes of cryptic encounters with total strangers who rise at prayer meetings or approach him on campus, usually bearing fortifying verses of Scripture. He says he is "absolutely certain" that one such visit -- made by a trembling elderly stranger who overtook him on his way to football practice, then handed him several three-by-five index cards of Bible verses -- "surely saved two lives. "They saved mine from a possible death penalty or life sentence in prison," McCartney writes. "And they saved the life of the man I would surely have tried to kill." That would be Bryan Abas, the author of a searing 1990 article that appeared in Westword, a Denver-based weekly tabloid. By then, Colorado's football program had been raked over the coals by Sports Illustrated, which reported a three-year run of player arrests including everything from serial rape to use of stolen credit cards to players shaking down a restaurant owner over a debt. The Westword article, relying on unnamed sources, said his daughter, Kristyn McCartney, was sleeping with football players who took advantage of her. In 1988, she became pregnant with Aunese's child. McCartney was livid about the Westword story. When Kristyn gave birth to Aunese's child in April 1989, McCartney was publicly supportive -- even passing out cigars to his players when the boy was born. Fairly or not, it's the sort of fodder critics use to suggest McCartney should stick to coaching football. McCartney and other Promise Keepers have frequently inspired charges of intolerance or sexism or bigotry too. Given that the group sells books, compact discs, cassette tapes, videotapes and bimonthly magazines through a bank of 10 operators at its headquarters in Wheat Ridge, Colo., attending a conference isn't necessary to discover the group's stands. In the book "Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper," various authors hold forth on sexual purity, tips for the travelling man (Suggestion 3: have hotel-room movies turned off at check-in to avoid being tempted by pornography) and tips for dealing with family crises (one example given: your college son returns home with an earring.). In one chapter, author Tony Evans traces the decline of the American family or the "feminization of men." He tells men how to reclaim leadership roles in their families: "Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not suggesting that you ask for your role back. I'm urging you to take it back," Evans writes. "Unfortunately there can be no compromise. ... Treat the lady gently and lovingly. But lead. ... {And} to you ladies who may be reading this: 'Give it back! For the sake of your family and the survival of our culture, let your man be a man if he's willing." Wardell says he's caught flak for a recent Denver Post interview in which he said, "We want our nation to return to God. We're drawing a line in the sand here. ... There has already been controversy about abortion and homosexuality. I hope there won't be physical confrontation but look at Amendment 2 and the Act-Up people and the foreign religions coming in here." McCartney and Wardell insist neither they nor Promise Keepers presume to judge anybody. Illana Zhenya Gallon, spokesperson for Campus Lambda, the gay, lesbian and bisexual faculty group at the University of Colorado, says what McCartney and the Promise Keepers' annual visits to Boulder have done is, "Make a lot of the diverse groups here feel as though we're under attack, and that's actually drawn us together. We realize the way to answer hate speech is with more speech ... and credible information to dispel these tired, old myths." A Coach's Influence But what do McCartney's religious convictions have to do with football? Everything and nothing at all. The University of Colorado's religious policy orders all employees to disassociate themselves from the school when expressing his religious sentiments. But McCartney also believes a coach's job includes positively influencing his players' lives. His evangelical faith stresses activism guided by God's principles. As his friend Wardell says, "He's a coach and a Christian. How do you separate the two?" It's a very fine line. Sitting in his office last week, McCartney reiterated that homosexuality is "an abomination." Regarding abortion, he added: "How you can take a life, abortion, you know, and justify that when that's a human being that's about to come out of there? To me, that's always confused me." In his autobiography, he writes, "Yes I asked God to evangelize our players. Yes, I asked God to enlighten me and make me a better coach." He says pressure from the ACLU "can -- and did -- stop me from what it called 'forcing my beliefs on my players.' ... But I can and will keep right on praying that every athlete who commits himself to playing football for Colorado will also commit his life to Jesus Christ. ... It's been my experience that the young men who come from the good homes, the bedrock solid homes that are full of Christian love and care, are the ones who have the best chance to withstand the pressures and meet the challenges of college." A few past players have accused McCartney of favoring Christians, or recruiting "too many altar boys" during his program's lean years, then too many at-risk players when he needed to save his job. McCartney denies it. Interview requests placed last week to seven ex-Colorado players in the NFL produced a sharp contrast of opinions. The Denver Broncos' Jeff Campbell warmly complimented McCartney. The Pittsburgh Steelers' Joel Steed commended McCartney's motivational ability and football knowledge, but added "there were some dichotomies when I was there that bothered me, but I really wouldn't want to get into them unless {McCartney} was in the room to hear." A third player didn't return calls. Four other NFL players were approached by their team public relations director to talk about McCartney for this article. The director summed up their responses: "They said, in so many words, 'Bill McCartney can go to hell,' " the public relations director said. Current Colorado players are supportive. A verse or two of Scripture occasionally drops into McCartney's offseason letters. Practice ends each day with a daily prayer. But that's about it, they say. Heisman Trophy candidate Rashaan Salaam, one of several Muslims on the team, says, "Coach McCartney has always respected my religion and I've always respected his." Linebacker Ted Johnson says, "It's not like you don't know what you're getting when you come here. I think it's good he wants to stand for something." Quarterback Kordell Stewart says, "I like it. He's honest. Sincere. Everything he told me would happen here has come true." The players toss credit for this season to McCartney, but he tosses it right back at them and the commitment the team made this summer. (Stewart estimates only 10 or so players didn't stay in town.) Now Salaam is the nation's leading rusher. Colorado's record already includes wins over four ranked teams -- Wisconsin, Oklahoma, a last-ditch comeback against Texas, and, of course, that miracle game against then-No. 4 Michigan, when Stewart connected with Michael Westbrook on a 64-yard pass play as time expired. Stewart now jokes when his playing days are over he's going to open his own business: "The Hail Mary Barber Shop." Asked if he remembers McCartney in the locker room after the Michigan game, Stewart says, "Oh, yeah. He just was cheesing -- smiling, laughing, giggling, like it was funny or something." You can imagine what McCartney's Christian pals were thinking as they watched. Wardell says, "A lot of us were thinking, boy, does he have a line going up to God, or what?" 'The Heart of God' McCartney is frequently asked if he'll quit coaching to devote himself full-time to the Promise Keepers. He keeps saying no. He has 11 years left on his Colorado contract. Coaching brings visibility. And Promise Keepers is booming just the way it is. The annual budget has mushroomed from $3 million to $28 million, staff has grown from 75 to a planned 180. There are plans to go international, plans to bring the stadium gatherings to 12 U.S. cities next year, plans to organize a million men to come to a revival on the Mall in Washington in the summer of 1996, when the presidential election campaign will be in full swing. McCartney knows the march on Washington, especially, makes people think Promise Keepers have political ambitions. But he disagrees. "Man sits back and casts aspersions, man sits back and says 'What are they up to? -- you know, what are they really up to?' " McCartney says. "And all we're really up to is seeking the heart of God. That's all." Maybe. Or maybe not. Other Promise Keepers leaders, notably president Randy T. Phillips, have admitted political action could be the logical result of the group's exhortations to men. And Jay Coakley, a sociologist at the University of Colorado's Colorado Springs campus who's been observing Promise Keepers for the last three years, points out Promise Keepers aren't sending men home unarmed. "They give these men both a moral mandate to act, a sort of ultimate authority, and they give them recipes on how to act with all these five-point, six-point, eight-point plans," Coakley says. McCartney knows not everyone likes his off-field work. But plenty do too. "People are throwing stones," he says, "but when you stay somewhere for an extended amount of time you're going to be exposed, okay? You can fool some people some of the time. And you can fool some of the people all of the time. What matters is what you stood for."
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