GOD, FOOTBALL AND THE GAME OF HIS LIFE

By RICHARD N. OSTLING/DENVER

It's 9 p.m. and the rally is still days away. But Bill McCartney is sitting quietly in his hotel room, preparing for the biggest gathering ever of the Promise Keepers, the group he founded seven years ago. A day full of meetings has caused his 6-ft. 1-in., 200-lb. frame to slump, turned his trademark baritone voice into a whisper and probably added a touch more gray to his short, salt-and-pepper hair. But his eyes, peering out from behind steel-rimmed tinted glasses, still possess an uncanny intensity as he meditates on the first chapter of Paul's Letter to the Colossians, the Scripture text for his address to the hundreds of thousands he expects in Washington's National Mall this Saturday. Even in his exhaustion, he feels the resonance of the 24th verse: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake."

McCartney has managed to touch the hearts of men who don't consider themselves religious at all--the way a coach can get the toughest jocks to huddle for prayer. Of course, McCartney was born to be a coach. "From when I was little, I never saw myself doing anything else," McCartney says. "I knew I was gonna be a coach all my life." After graduating from college, he plunged straight into coaching football, and it was during his tenure as a defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan that he and his wife Lyndi, who were originally Roman Catholic, became more fervent Christians, inspired by the Protestant evangelical organization Campus Crusade for Christ.

McCartney and his family moved in 1982 to Boulder, where he transformed the hapless Buffaloes of the University of Colorado. First he had to struggle through some miserable losing seasons (including a 1-10 record in 1984) and criticism that he favored Christian players over less devout teammates. Gradually, though, McCartney put together a winning streak, leading to a spectacular 1989 season that earned him five national Coach of the Year honors and culminated in beating Notre Dame at the Orange Bowl in 1991. In that year he signed a dream 15-year contract with Colorado, worth $400,000 in a good year, plus bonuses.

But his life as the father of four children suffered as he pursued football. In 1989 his only daughter, 20-year-old Kristyn, became the out-of-wedlock mother to the child of Colorado football star Sal Aunese, a notorious campus playboy. (In 1993 she gave birth to a son fathered by another of McCartney's varsity players.) Meanwhile, his wife Lyndi drifted into depression as her children grew up and moved out and her husband remained on the road.

It was in this period McCartney started Promise Keepers. In the spring of 1990 he and his friend Dave Wardell, an official of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, were preparing to travel from Boulder to Pueblo when McCartney was struck by a vision of stadiums filled with men willing to become deeply committed Christians. "He jumped in the car and said, 'Let's pray,'" says Wardell. "We prayed for three and a half hours. This guy is strong. He's stronger than bear's breath."

And not afraid to cry. When black leaders in the Denver area berated him over the number of blacks on the team disciplined with suspensions, McCartney apologized for the disparity, fell to his knees and wept. "I was eating it up," says Bishop Phillip Porter, one of the critics. "Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, You prejudged this man because he's white. That's prejudice. You ought to be on your knees too." Porter later joined the Promise Keepers board.

McCartney turned to his family and its wounds. He makes time for his fatherless grandsons ("It gives them a male role model"). His daughter works at the Promise Keepers office in Denver. And McCartney remained close to Aunese, counseling the former football star and helping him accept Jesus nine weeks before he died of cancer in September 1989. In 1994 McCartney gave up his lucrative football career--not to give more time to Promise Keepers but to be able to make up for lost time with Lyndi. She recalls being worried "that if he quit what he loved, for me, then eventually he wouldn't love me anymore." But, she adds, "when he was talking about how he was hearing the call from the Lord to do this, that gave me a peace. It wasn't on my shoulders; it was on God's shoulders, and his are big and strong and dependable."

McCartney draws no salary from Promise Keepers, only speaker fees and expenses, and still wonders why he was called to lead it. "It's absurd that I'm the one. I've made so many mistakes." But he has no regrets. "I loved coaching. It's compelling, invigorating. But this is so much greater."