Tom McCartney would chat with his dad — legendary CU football coach Bill McCartney — before and after every game as the head coach at Fairview High School.

Even at halftime, they’d often communicate over text.

At the helm of the Knights since 1993, this was Tom’s routine for 30-some years. Only recently had that changed as Bill’s “dementia took that joy and blessing away,” Tom said.

Last Friday, Bill McCartney, who coached Colorado to its only football national championship in 1990, died at the age of 84 after a “courageous journey” with the disease, his family said in a statement.

Since the news of his death, the outpouring of support has come from inside the Boulder community and across the country and world. And not just in his connections on the gridiron — though, they are many — but from those a part of the Christian faith that shaped so much of his legacy.

His son Tom is still processing it.

“My dad is my hero and mentor,” he said this week.

When Tom reflects on his dad — who, for many, could be seen as bigger than life, as a CU legend and one of the most prominent Christian leaders in the 1990s, when he founded Promise Keepers — the stories are intimate.

“I have great stories and memories in faith and family and football,” Tom said. No matter what happened on the field, their father-son chats before and after each of Tom’s games at Fairview would strike a similar tone. “My dad would encourage me. My dad would believe in me.”

It’s the foundation that made Bill — nicknamed Coach Mac — such a success in Boulder.

Bill remains the winningest football coach at CU, touting a record of 93-55-5. He took over the program in 1982, and after a rough start and three losing seasons to open his tenure, he led the Buffaloes to 10 consecutive winning campaigns — claiming three Big Eight titles, and of course, the national championship in 1990.

In 2013, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

“We saw the impact he had on our team, but we also saw his impact on other people outside of the team,” said Dr. James Hill, who was a running back at CU under Coach Mac from 1990-93. “He was someone who forged paths for others, guiding them towards success and fulfillment.”

To do all of it, Bill needed trust and buy-in.

Flashing a wide, gentle smile, Bill had the ability to relate to anyone. In part, he had a strong relationship to the Black community, where he was known for getting top players away from the longstanding powers to Boulder. Later, he was a revered Christian speaker, who attracted tens of thousands of worshippers to arenas and stadiums around the country.

Hill said those who met Bill could count on him to stay consistent in his truth and beliefs. Even when it wasn’t widely accepted.

“Before one of our bowl games, he suspended one of our players, a starter, for breaking rules” Hill recalled. “We had a team meeting and we said, ‘You know what, we are going to have Coach Mac come into this meeting and we are going to tell him we don’t agree with the suspension. We want that player back on the team.’”

Hill started to chuckle and continued.

“So, we were in our team auditorium. Coach Mac comes in, looks at us and says, ‘What’s this meeting about?’ And he said, ‘But before you start the meeting, let me say this: That player is not coming back on the team. HE IS NOT COMING BACK ON THE TEAM,” Hill said, his voice getting louder to imitate McCartney’s strong-willed response. “And we looked at each other and we were like, ‘OK, meeting adjourned.’”

No mistake about it, Hill said: When Bill said he’d do something, “he stood on it.”

Hill said he’s used those teachings himself as he became a leader in the classroom. He later became the principal of Boulder High School and is now the assistant superintendent of human resources for Boulder Valley School District.

“I remember I got the principal job at Boulder High School. It’s about 6:45 p.m. the night after I accepted it, and I picked the phone and it’s Coach Mac,” Hill said. “He’s like, ‘Hill the Thrill.’ That’s what he used to call me. And he was crying. I never witnessed Coach Mac crying before. I was like, ‘Hey Coach Mac.’ But he was crying, so he jumped right into it and says, ‘Hill the Thrill, I am so proud of you. Boulder High School? BOULDER HIGH SCHOOL?’”

Hill said McCartney continued: “‘Do you understand how significant that is? Do you know how many lives you’re going to be shaping in that role? And as an African American man in Boulder?’ And that’s when it hit me. I was like, wow, maybe it is a big deal. Maybe this is a different way I have to look at this rather than a responsibility afforded to me. And when he said that, I truly felt it shaped my attitude, my vision and my approach to walking into that building every day. I’ll never forget that 33-minute conversation.”

Winning football games really never was Coach Mac’s end goal.

He retired as CU’s coach in 1994, citing his desire to spend more time with his wife Lyndi. They were married for 50 years before Lyndi died following a long battle with emphysema at the age of 70. They have four children, 10 grandkids and three great-grandchildren.

“My parents were strong in their faith,” Tom said. “And they love family.”

“Bill’s gone, but he’s not gone”

When Anthony Ceder, the pastor of Grace Commons Church, originally moved to Boulder 14 months ago, the first book he put on the shelf in his new home was Bill McCartney’s “From Ashes to Glory: Conflicts and Victories On and Beyond the Football Field.”

Little did he know at the time that he would get to meet one of the most influential figures from his teenage and adult years. His father — then a head high school football coach in Austin, Texas — gave him the book after CU’s national championship run. He was 14 at the time.

“I read the book, and when it felt like I was supposed to come to Boulder, it’s the first book I went to find,” Ceder recalled. “Even when I was in eighth grade, I felt like this calling at Grace Commons was almost like a down payment. It was made with this story and his influence upon my life, really just combining family, football, faith — that these things didn’t have to be compartmentalized. That there was a way that you could do it through unconditionally loving people, doing your job with excellence.”

CU was already his favorite team. His father once took him to Dallas for a Promise Keepers conference, a Christian organization Bill founded to champion a man’s role in family and faith.

Ceder later joined Tom’s staff at Fairview as its freshman coach after making coaching stops at Rice University, the University of Texas and the Minnesota Vikings. Even with that glistening resume, he was the envy of all of his former counterparts once he told them he would be under the wing of the Tom McCartney.

“The privilege of coaching at Fairview really is rooted in the football program for me, because the McCartney name is still royalty,” Ceder said. “When I tell my college and NFL friends that I get to coach for a McCartney, they’re like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Bill’s son?’ People outside of Boulder don’t realize what a gift it is that Tom’s our coach. He runs it just like Colorado. He runs it like a Division-I program.”

Once Tom had learned that Ceder was a pastor, he asked if he would accompany him to visit his father at his assisted living center. Ceder estimated that he visited Bill six times before his passing, including in his final days. Long after his memory had declined, and names of family members had faded away, Ceder said Bill could always quote scripture with him.

Ceder said Bill’s room at the center was adorned with family photos and Buffaloes memorabilia, but what he’ll remember most about his visits is not just the lifelong realization of meeting his icon, but the humor that he always brought to the conversation.

Ceder said he’d rather meet Bill McCartney “than any president who’s ever lived.”

“The first time I went, he said, ‘Who are you?’ And I was like, ‘Whoa, this guy’s a little testy.’ But he wasn’t testy,” Ceder explained. “He just still had a sense of humor. ‘Who are you?’ I said, ‘Coach, I’m friends with your son, Tom.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s good. I’ll let you in my room if you’re not friends with Lou Holtz.’ And I just laughed.

“To be around him was to be around a storyteller. It was my honor to get to go bedside six times with a childhood hero. Not everybody gets to do that. And again, for me, he wasn’t the coach of the Buffs. He was the story of my childhood in college football. He was the story, whether it be Rashaan Salaam’s Heisman Trophy or Kordell Stewart, or in my day — I’m from Texas — Koy Detmer, or my favorite player of all time, Darian Hagan. We just love the Buffs.”

The producer of the 2017 documentary “Born to Lead: The Sal Aunese Story” sent the McCartney children a heartfelt message from Lou Holtz after Bill’s passing. “He was a tremendous coach but a better individual,” Holtz said.

“Bill’s gone, but he’s not gone,” Ceder concluded.

“He’s a great American hero”

When diners visit Pasta Jay’s at Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, they can take in a piece of CU history as they look up to the wine glass rack above the bar. It represents a long, interpersonal connection between the restaurant’s founder, Jay Elowsky, and Bill McCartney.

When CU began construction of its Champions Center, the campus’ main athletics hub, Elowsky offered to design and fund its kitchen. Athletic director Rick George agreed, and Elowsky crafted the athletes’ meal program as well.

“The day we moved in from out of Dal Ward — we’re moving restaurant supplies and food and all that kind of stuff into the Champions Center — I opened this closet,” Elowsky recalled. “That trophy’s sitting in there, and so I took it. I think Bryan McGinnis, who was the director of football operations, was with me at the time. He says, ‘You can’t take that.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m going to take it, and I’m going to put it down at the restaurant.’ And so I took it, and I put it up there.”

According to Elowsky, Hagan later called him to demand he return the trophy. Elowsky quipped that George could take it back whenever he wanted to.

Seven years later, the trophy is still suspended over the bar.

Bill integrated Pasta Jay’s into the CU football program in 1989, when he hired Elowsky to cater food for the team. Elowsky fed them for free once a week, seeing it as an opportunity to be part of what he called “the greater good” of mentoring young people and transforming their lives.

Over the years, Bill and Elowsky formed a strong friendship. The football program used Pasta Jay’s as a recruiting tool to show the prospective players that they’d be well-fed at CU.

“Just being with him elevated your whole day,” Elowsky said of Bill. “He was that positive, that influential, that loving and compassionate and giving and charismatic. You’d go out, you’d have lunch with him, and you’d be whistling and skipping the whole rest of the day.”

The program gifted Elowsky a Big Eight championship ring, complete with a “Pasta Jay” inscription on the side. Last year, he was inducted into CU’s Legacy Wing.

“You have the moments of sorrow and tears, but most of them are tears of joy just because of how fun he was and just the relationship we had and the things that we did together to elevate the program,” Elowsky said. “His legacy lives on in everybody that he’s touched in a Christian value way. His legacy lives on in me and my kids and my mom and dad, and all our family and friends and everybody that comes in contact with him. He’s a great American hero. There’s no other way to put it.”

To honor him, Pasta Jay’s will close down on Jan. 22, following Bill’s public memorial service at the CU Events Center, to feed the McCartney family and its close friends. Doors for the funeral open at 8:30 a.m. for the 10 a.m. service.