SIDHello Sid Roth here your investigative reporter and I feel like a broken record, but I am so looking forward with you being with us today, and with coach Bill McCartney. Many of you are familiar with him with his football days; most of you are familiar with him with his Promise Keepers days; but God has a new assignment for the coach. Before we get there, Bill I am so intrigued of how a college Football coach comes up with a revolutionary idea that no coach as far as we know in history ever came up with and starts winning games. I am going to take you back to that, tell me about that day.  You were an assistant coach, tell me which University?

BILL:  University of Michigan.

SID:  Tell us what happened.

BILL:  I had been there a few years, I was young in the Lord, in 1974 I got hired at the University of Michigan, as assistant football coach and prayed to receive Christ shortly thereafter. And as the defensive coordinator, it was my responsibility to design the defensive strategy for the upcoming opponent. In this particular week we were going to play Purdue. Purdue was being led by Mark Herman, who had just established himself as the all-time total offense leader in the history of college football. Now that since has been broken.

SID:  Yah, but that is saying a lot, but go ahead.

BILL:  Well Purdue was averaging 45 points a game, coming into our game, and so we began to look at film as the week unfolded, and it was intimidating, they never punted all the ever did was score and so

SID:  If I were you I wouldn’t have let my guys see the film, but go ahead.

BILL:  Well as coaches we tried to develop the right strategy. And we went out and practiced on Monday, but it wasn’t coming together like it needed to. I mean you know as a coach when a plan is the right plan. We went our again to practice on Tuesday, this is a heavy work day, I mean we are full padded practice, two and a half hour practice, we come in we had filmed that practice. So we watched it that night as coaches, the players weren’t there. And I am praying, I mean what do you do as a man of God? And you know a lot of people think that God doesn’t care who wins football games, but that is not what God’s word says: in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 it says “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path.” It doesn’t say in every way but football; it says in every way.

SID:  Yah, but what happens when there are two coaches that both love the Lord (laughs) and are praying?

BILL:  God is going to glorify twice (laughs), it is just one guy is going to have to glorify God by the way that he handles the defeat.

SID:  I got you, okay.

BILL:  But anyway, the Lord gave me an idea, now the idea since that time has been prevalent. But prior to that time, to my knowledge it was a brand new idea. And I jumped up on Tuesday night at about 9:00 o’clock at night I said I got it, I got an idea! Well we implemented the idea, and Saturday as the game unfolded, Purdue could hardly make a first down, we beat them, 26 to nothing. It was a shocking score because no one expected them to get shutout. People thought Michigan might win, but to shut them out, that was

SID:  What was Gods idea briefly?

BILL:  Well what he showed me was, was if we would play with six defensive backs, this is back in 1980, college football wasn’t played with six defensive backs in the game at the same time, and so

SID:  That is so simple.

BILL:  Well, we changed our personnel a little bit to adjust, and then all of a sudden we just matched up with them perfectly. And they weren’t anticipating it wasn’t something…

SID:  Now are you sure it was God and not just your football expertise?

BILL:  Let me tell you why you know it was God, God works in the absurd would you agree?

SID:  Yes.

BILL:  Where here is how you know it was God, On Monday after the game, they named me the Big 10 player of the week.

SID:  Player? You’re the coach! You’re the assistant coach!

BILL:  It has never happened before, it will never happen again, it is a matter of record you can check it out and so that is how you know. Because…

SID:  Okay well then you went on to the University of Colorado, but before you went there was an interesting prophetic word.

BILL:  Well when I got to the University of Colorado, within the first week after I was hired, I got a letter from an elderly lady in the east. And she told me that God had told her to write to me, and tell me that I would be his rock in Boulder. Not only that, four men came into my office from the state of Texas; I never saw them before in my life, and they said coach, God told us to come tell you that he was going to use you greatly in the days ahead. So what do you do with that, I mean you just carry those things in your heart. And you hold them before the Lord and you realize that God can do whatever he wants to do. But he was preparing me; we consecrated the football program at Colorado at that time to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Romans 11:16 says if the first fruits are consecrated so too is the whole mass of dough, if the root is consecrated so too are the branches. Every kid that came into that program was prayed in, every coach that was hired was prayed over, when I would go to recruit a kid I would pull up to his house and I would sit outside it and I would say Lord, if you want this guy on the team that you are building, give him to us, give me favor in that home.

SID:  Tell me about the time that your pastor walks in, the worst time the worst place, walks onto the practice field and you are saying you know I love you pastor but not now.

BILL:  It was, we were in two a day sessions, in August and you have to understand that those practices were carefully orchestrated. Everything had been discussed in advance and researched; so everything that we are doing out there is a matter of thorough discussion and it needs to happen bang, bang, bang. So with that in mind, we are right in the middle of practice and I look over and here is the pastor of my church, James Ryle, coming out on the practice field.  And I am thinking, he doesn’t understand; he doesn’t belong out here; and so I gave him body language to kind of let him know, but he is undeterred he keeps coming. And I go oh no, and he says coach, coach, you are not going to believe this, but I had a dream last night and in the dream God showed me that your team is going to have a golden season and you personally will be the National Coach of the Year.

SID:  Bottom line what happened?

BILL:  Well I was no longer offended (laughter)

SID:  That I know, but what happened?

BILL:  Well what happened is, I was voted the National Coach of the Year, and we were the only undefeated tied team in the nation, at the end of the regular season.

SID:  You see how God couldn’t trust Promise Keepers to this man, don’t go away. You thought that was supernatural; wait until you happen to hear a million, four hundred thousand men came together to worship Jesus in Promise Keepers, be right back.

Content Protection by DMCA.com