How late Colorado coach Bill McCartney faced his own mortality

On Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017, I made an appointment to meet with former Colorado football coach Bill McCartney at a Starbucks inside a Safeway supermarket near Denver. I was a reporter with USA TODAY, same as now, and wanted to interview him about his life and health after being diagnosed with late-onset dementia/Alzheimer’s disease.

McCartney, then 77 years old, agreed to talk but didn’t show up on time for the 8 a.m. meeting. So I contacted somebody who knew him to remind him. When he finally arrived about 35 minutes later, he apologized profusely. He said he couldn’t believe he forgot about it.

“What’s happened to me today with you is the most glaring thing that’s happened so far,” McCartney said then. “In other words, I don’t miss appointments, you know? … As a coach, you can’t. You just absolutely can’t, because you lose your leverage. You lose your credibility. So this is all happening as we speak. I didn’t expect this, and I have no recollection of saying I was going to meet you.”

McCartney died Friday at age 84. But the reflections and thoughts he shared that day at that Starbucks still stick with me when I think about who he was and how he was dealing with one of the most frightening things anybody can ever face − losing your mind. It’s a truly sad story, though the way he viewed his fate inspires courage. It also serves as a reminder that nearly seven million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s – a disease without a cure and a cause that's not fully understood.

There was only one thing he could do about it, he said.

“Faith is a choice,” McCartney said. “You can choose to believe or choose not to.”

Facing his own mortality

This was a man who revived one of the worst college football programs in America and led it to the national championship in 1990 before retiring abruptly in 1994 at age 54. Twenty-two years after that, his family announced his condition in 2016. Less than nine years later, he was gone, showing how unforgiving the disease can be and how everything is so temporary unless you believe in something bigger. He did and wore it on his sleeve  – his Christian faith. Yet even if you’re not religious, his message has meaning in the face of a cruel disease that only gets worse. He agreed to talk about it to help raise awareness.

“When you’re going through something that you don’t know what you’re going through, and you haven’t heard about it and you don’t quite know how to explain it, that’s kind of where it is,” he said then. “Nobody expects to experience something like this, at least I didn’t. So now I don’t know quite how to discuss it or describe it.”

He said he didn’t know what to expect, that he suspected his time might be short but still believed there was a way out of it.

“I believe it’s prayer,” he said. “I believe that. I’m not saying it will happen. I’m saying I know where to go with it.”

To come to terms with his fate, McCartney almost sounded like he was coaching himself in a way he coached so many great players at Colorado, including Heisman Trophy winner Rashaan Salaam, quarterback Kordell Stewart and running back Eric Bieniemy. He was a master recruiter who won over players’ parents with his talk of faith and family. He also had a way of knowing how to motivate and inspire players individually.

“He could inspire and convince anyone that they could accomplish things usually unattainable for ordinary men,” former Colorado tight end Christian Fauria said in a tribute to McCartney.

'You can't win the game until the fourth quarter'

After he retired from football, McCartney took those talents to ministry with his faith-based organization, Promise Keepers. Then came his final challenge.

“I always thought I’m just starting the fourth quarter and that’s when you win the game,” he said during the interview in 2017. “You may be ahead or behind, but you can’t win the game until the fourth quarter. And I’m realizing it’s the fourth quarter, and maybe they can give me a shot.”

He was referring to modern medicine, hoping it could find a way to help his condition. He admitted he was “still in denial a little bit” about it but found it frightening. Football still taught him the best way to deal with situations like that, too.

“It teaches a boy to be a man,” he said. “You say, 'How does it do that?' Well, what if you line up across from a guy who’s bigger, stronger, faster and tougher than you are? What do you do? Do you stay and play or do you turn and run? That’s what football does. You’re always going to come up against somebody who’s better than you are. That’s what life is. Life is getting knocked down and getting back up and getting back in the game.”

McCartney spent his time then exercising regularly, riding a mountain bike at least four or five times a week and praying. Unlike many others who get understandably frustrated with this disease, McCartney didn’t react with anger or take it out on others, his daughter Kristy said. “He’s been terrific,” she said then.

Two years ago, he even made a trip to the Boulder campus to meet with current Colorado coach Deion Sanders.

Born to coach

On Friday, his family announced he had left the world peacefully after “a courageous journey with dementia.”

When I met with him that day in 2017, he still vividly recalled how it all started for him growing up across the street from Riverview High School in Riverview, Michigan.

“You know how you ask little kids, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' I said I want to be a coach,” McCartney said. “And the reason was my parents would let me go across the street. There were all the playgrounds. That’s where all the teams would practice football, basketball. And I would watch these coaches. I said, 'Man, these guys are good. I want to try that.' From that time on, I knew I was going to be a coach.”

He was born for it. In 1973, he even led Divine Child High School in Dearborn to state championships in both basketball and football. He took over at Colorado in 1982 and finished as its winningest head coach in 1994.

By the end of the interview, it became clear that his long-term memory was solid even if his short-term recall was giving him trouble. I told him this and he thanked me for encouraging him with that observation after he felt embarrassed by his initial tardiness.

“I benefited from this dialogue because it gives me the picture that I’m not far gone,” he said.

Rest in peace, Coach Mac. For a few seconds there, it almost felt like I was coaching you. And it served as a lesson you knew as well as any coach in any calling. In the end, it comes down to faith, religious or otherwise. A little encouragement can go a long way, too.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Remembering late Colorado coach Bill McCartney and his last battle