In recent years, Colorado legendary quarterback Darian Hagan had seen his mentor and former coach, Bill McCartney, decline in health.

When the call came on Friday night that McCartney had died, at age 84, after a lengthy battle with dementia, Hagan wasn’t surprised but was still overcome with sadness.

“Emotionally, I’m scarred,” Hagan, who played at CU from 1988-1991, told BuffZone. “I knew it was gonna happen, but for it to be for real, it was a shocker, it was heartfelt. It was one of those deals where I felt like someone in my family had passed, and in reality, that’s exactly what happened.”

For 13 years, from 1982-94, McCartney had a hall-of-fame career as the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes’ football program. Those 13 years on the sidelines, however, pale in comparison to the many decades in which Coach Mac impacted the lives of Hagan and so many of his players.

“The greatest Buff ever, in my mind, passed,” Chad Brown, a Buffs linebacker from 1988-92, told BuffZone.

“So, for players of my time and my era, I’m sure that we’ll mourn the loss of the greatest Buff. But, in the end, it’s the man and the human being he was that will stick with us forever.”

Hagan, Brown and so many men who played for Coach Mac have been in mourning over the loss of the man who was much more than a coach to them.

On X, CU great Alfred Williams wrote: “I want to extend my deepest condolences to the McCartney family. Coach Bill McCartney was an extraordinary role model for a young man like me. He was a God-loving family man and a Hall of Fame coach whose impact reached far beyond the football field. His unwavering faith and deep love for his family were the foundation of his life — values that always mattered more to him than the game itself. Coach Mac will be forever missed and deeply loved by all who had the privilege of knowing him. His legacy is firmly built on love, character, integrity, hope, and faith. I will always thank God for blessing me with the opportunity to have him in my life.”

Darrin Chiaverini didn’t get a chance to play for McCartney but was one of the last players recruited to CU by Mac.

He also later coached at CU and got to know Mac better.

“When I was 17, I got a call from Coach about coming to Colorado,” Chiaverini, who played at CU from 1995-98, wrote on X. “You could hear and feel the passion in his voice. When I came back to Colorado in 2016 to coach my alma mater, you could still see the fire and passion in his eyes.”

The fire and passion never left Coach Mac because of his love for mentoring the young men in his program.

Hagan was a highly recruited option quarterback in Los Angeles when McCartney came into his home in 1987 and instantly made an impression.

“I look at Coach Mac as the patriarch of my family, because when he came to my house he told my family he would take care of me. He would take a young man and turn him into a man, and that’s exactly what he did,” Hagan said.

“Especially growing up in the ’80s, most of the Caucasian men that I was accustomed to were white police officers. When (McCartney) came into my neighborhood and came into my house, I just knew right then and there that (CU) was the place I was supposed to be, because he was the most genuine person that I had been around during that process. He spoke from the heart. He galvanized my family. He galvanized me.”

Brown had a similar experience as a recruit, although he had initial skepticism at McCartney’s pledge to be like a father to him at CU.

“At 17 years old, that’s the last thing you want. I’ve got a dad,” Brown said. “It turned out to be exactly what I needed, even though I didn’t know that.”

It didn’t take Brown long to learn that McCartney was genuine.

“I had never had a man outside of my grandfather or father tell me he loved me,” Brown said. “Coach Mac would say he was practicing ‘agape love,’ a Biblical style of love. For somebody so young and so impressionable, that made an impression on me. Here’s somebody who genuinely cares for me, who’s not afraid in the macho sport of football to tell me that he loves me, to sit on my parents’ couch and tell me he has a vision for me.”

Under McCartney’s direction, the Buffs won a lot of games and claimed the Associated Press national title in 1990, with Hagan, Williams, Brown and others playing key roles.

They did that, Brown said, because they believed in what McCartney taught them. And, more than three decades later, those players in that era remain close.

“I think it is because of Coach Mac,” Brown said. “He practiced and told us about unity and how collective belief is so powerful, how working together is so powerful. When you begin to see the power of putting those phrases into action, those kinds of things make it almost undeniable. You can’t deny the things that this man is saying. Can’t deny the word that he’s preaching, because we see it.”

McCartney’s word impacted his players when they were student-athletes at CU, but many of the words haven’t left them.

Brown still recalls McCartney saying, “The positive is to the negative as 10 is to one.”

“It would take 10 positive thoughts to overcome one negative thought, so why really entertain those negative thoughts?” Brown said. “Why give them space when there’s so many positive things that we can think about and to push it forward?”

Hagan, a longtime CU assistant coach who is currently coaching running backs at San Diego State, said McCartney’s words have shaped him as a man and coach.

Hagan will continue to remember the advice and love from Coach Mac, but on Saturday, he was filled with emotion.

“For him to suffer all those years and how he passed away, right now, I look at it like this: he’s walking that road in heaven with the good Lord and (his late wife) Lyndi.

“He’s not suffering anymore, and that’s a weight off of a bunch of people’s shoulders, including myself. But, it doesn’t make it any better. I’m hurting over here.”