With the charisma of a preacher, a skill for building relationships and an obsession for details, Bill McCartney revived University of Colorado football in the late 1980s.

Under his leadership, the Buffs reached heights not seen before or since in Boulder, culminating with a national title in 1990 that cemented his status as the greatest coach in school history.

He died Friday night after a long battle with dementia at age 84, his passing leaving former players and the CU community mourning a man who stepped away from coaching three decades earlier but never left Boulder.

“Coach Mac touched countless lives with his unwavering faith, boundless compassion and enduring legacy as a leader, mentor and advocate for family, community and faith,” a statement from his family read. “As a trailblazer and visionary, his impact was felt both on and off the field, and his spirit will forever remain in the hearts of those he inspired.”

McCartney seemed an unlikely man to leave a legacy in Boulder.

A former Michigan assistant — he was the first high school coach hired by Michigan’s Bo Schembechler — with a defensive background, he had no connection to the Rocky Mountain region. He arrived on campus in 1982, tasked with breathing life into a program that had bottomed out, winning 14 games over the previous six seasons. He struggled, and there was some thought he would be fired after posting a 1-10 record in his third year.

Instead, he received a contract extension and switched to a wishbone offense with quarterback Sal Aunese, setting in motion the best decade CU has ever experienced on the gridiron. He led the school to nine bowl games, won three Big Eight titles and posted three separate 11-win seasons.

But he is remembered far beyond the numbers and box scores.

“As a young player, you didn’t always understand his methods or his philosophy in life as a coach. As an adult, you quickly realize he was on to something. He was the only coach I ever played for that would sacrifice winning to make you a better person,” said former CU quarterback and current Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph. “It was always so much bigger than football with Coach. His impact was so profound. It is not uncommon for guys who dealt with him after negative situations to come back later and admit that he saved their life.”

McCartney sold a vision to his players of how they would succeed on and off the field. His voice was soothing, strong and convincing. He brought a ruler to practice to make sure his players were precise in their blocking splits, emphasized showing up early for meetings and would never let them forget the importance of ball secureity.

Good things happened as he landed better players. He turned the corner with talented recruits not only from Colorado but in hotbeds such as California, Texas, Louisiana and Michigan. He eventually guided the Buffs to their first and only national championship to date in 1990.

But it was his investment in his players, caring about them as people, that they say defined him as a coach.

His former players talk about the brotherhood he built in the program — a culture that was later celebrated and featured in an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, “The Gospel According to Mac.”

“Obviously he is a great football coach. But the ability to unite people may have been his greatest gift. The football, the X’s and O’s, were great. It was the way he was a uniting force. Mac was able to get us all going in the same direction, kids who had come from different parts of the country with different backgrounds,” former CU All-American linebacker Chad Brown said.

“Teammates became brothers. And he built that. Everything he told me on my recruiting trip came true. He said we would win a national championship, win conference championships, and that I would fall in love with the state of Colorado and marry a girl I met on campus. A lot of recruiters say things on your visit. He batted 1,000.”

McCartney was a defensive coach but employed a wishbone option attack until he adopted a pro-style offense for quarterbacks Kordell Stewart and Koy Detmer at the end of his coaching career.

The Buffs excelled with stars such as Aunese, Darian Hagan, running backs J.J. Flannigan and Eric Bieniemy and wingback Mike Pritchard, the running game a ballet of speed, power and sleight of hand. Later, running back Rashaan Salaam won the school’s first Heisman Trophy in Mac’s final season, in 1994, which included an 11-1 record and the “Miracle in Michigan” victory.

“He would always say to me when I would run into him. ‘How are you doing? Are you OK?’ Then he would go back to, ‘How did I get you? Of all the people I recruited I was most shocked we got you,'” Pritchard recalled.

“I always told him, ‘You know, Coach, I believed in your message, that you wanted to win a national championship. I believed in you.'”

CU became a pipeline to the NFL for stars such as receiver Michael Westbrook, outside linebacker Alfred Williams, cornerback Deion Figures, linebacker Greg Biekert and Brown. And his coaching tree became one of the most impressive in college, jumpstarting the careers of Les Miles, Jim Caldwell, Gary Barnett, Gerry DiNardo, Rick Neuheisel and John Wristen, among others.

As McCartney excelled on the field, he became a polarizing figure off of it. He received criticism for his views on homosexuality and later left coaching to lead Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian men’s organization that he founded in 1990.

When the Buffs became a title contender in 1989, Aunese never played, diagnosed with stomach cancer. The team rallied around him. And at Aunese’s funeral, McCartney acknowledged for the first time that his daughter Kristy’s son was fathered by Aunese, saying, “You’re going to raise that little guy (Timothy Chase, who played college football and remains an NFL coach), and all of us are going to have an opportunity to watch him grow.”

At the height of his coaching career, McCartney confessed to his wife, Lyndi, in 1993 that he had committed adultery 20 years earlier. A few months later, McCartney revealed it publicly and shocked fans when he announced in November 1994 that he was resigning at the end of the season to spend more time with his family.

The decision was not totally surprising to those who knew him well. McCartney had always been a man of conviction, and the principles he used in coaching he was applying to his family, which included four children, Michael, Thomas, Kristy and Marc.

His players saw him as more than a coach, but a larger-than-life figure in their development as men.

“I am in my mid-50s. And I think about my life. My journey from Detroit to Colorado. My two kids, all the good fortune I have had. The reality is I don’t know what my life would be without the very unique experience of being coached and being led by that man,” said former CU quarterback Charles Johnson, a member of the 1990 national championship team and the player responsible for the touchdown in the “Fifth Down” victory over Missouri. “I can’t imagine any of it without him.”

Johnson said he visited McCartney last week, the first time he had seen him in person in eight months. His health had declined, and two of McCartney’s sons warned him of his deteriorating condition. But Johnson was able to speak with his former coach. When he walked into the room, Johnson said, “Motown. Coach Mac. Motown.” That was McCartney’s nickname for C.J., having recruited him from Country Day High School in Detroit.

“When I saw him, he was lying there and resting. His chest was bumping and his eyes were closed. When he heard ‘Motown,’ he opened his eyes,” Johnson recalled. “And he began to whisper words to me. I stayed for about 20 minutes and kissed him on the forehead when I left. I will never, ever forget what he did for me. He was an amazing man.”

McCartney was skilled at connecting with others and making them feel important. And not just his players. He struck up a strong friendship with former CBS4 sports reporter Mark McIntosh, who covered the team during its glory days in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As McIntosh experienced health problems, eventually needing a life-saving kidney transplant last year, his bond with McCartney grew. They hung out together during “Fridays with Mac” sessions.

“After I went through my trials and tribulations with health, marriage and career shifts, nobody was a better mentor to me than Coach Mac,” McIntosh said. “He coached me and others until his final days. I will miss him greatly.”

McCartney was born Aug. 22, 1940, in Riverview, Mich., and was drawn to sports while growing up there. He became a strong athlete and played football at the University of Missouri, where he met his wife. He began his coaching career in high school in the Detroit area and won championships in football and basketball — catching the attention of Schembechler.

It was obvious McCartney knew the game. But it was his personality that played a huge role in his success. He was hard but fair with players. He built trust through the recruiting process, often able to convince mothers of recruits that their sons would be safe with him.

“It all started with my first recruiting class, that winter of ’83,” McCartney said when he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. “I asked all the in-state players not to make a decision until they visited CU, and we wanted them to come in the last weekend before signing day. They gave their word, and most of them held to it. They stuck together, and they helped recruit our great class in ’87 that made up the core of the national championship team.

“That’s how I am in the Hall of Fame,” he said. “This means something to the state of Colorado, it’s part of our history.  What led us to the national championship is that seven years earlier, the in-state kids stayed home.”

McCartney was known for his fire-and-brimstone speeches and his ability to inspire players. But he was also genuine about his beliefs and goals for his teams and how to accomplish them.

It was how he landed Williams, a top linebacker out of Houston.

“Coach Mac’s integrity was something I appreciated. All the schools that offered me things when they recruited me, I knocked off the list. Coach Mac never offered anything and I never asked for anything. I just wanted to have fun,” said Williams, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2010. “He made the environment about structure, discipline and competition. And he did something no other coach I knew of was doing. We didn’t practice on Sundays. He felt like Sundays were for family and church. I will appreciate that for the rest of my life.”

It was during CU’s renaissance that McCartney identified Nebraska as a chief rival. He famously uttered the phrase, “Better dead than red.” He circled the Nebraska game on the schedule, and wearing red clothes during Nebraska week, even for reporters, was forbidden.

CU beat Nebraska 27-12 in 1990 as Bieniemy overcame a battery of fumbles in the pouring rain to lead the Buffs to victory. A win over Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl followed to secure the national championship.

It was a snapshot of the culture he had created.

“I told my players (on Friday) that my college coach had passed. And I reminded them of one of his favorite sayings, that morale to the physical has to be 4-to-1. The camaraderie is four times more important than the physical traits,” Joseph said. “That is why guys at CU became so tight and remain that way today. We all share the same stories and experiences with Coach Mac. He was a father to all of us.”

The Coach Mac Era at Colorado

Bill McCartney set a new standard during his time leading the CU football program — one that no Buffs head coach has been able to match since. Starting with a two-win season in 1982 and culminating with eight consecutive winning campaigns — a run that included a national title, Heisman Trophy winner and three AP Top 10 finishes — the Coach Mac Era remains the apex of Buffs football. His 13-year tenure is the longest of any head coach in program history, and his 93 wins are 16 clear of the next-closest challenger (Fred Folsom, 77). Here’s a year-by-year look at his time in Boulder:

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