Colorado Buffaloes to honor Coach McCartney with uniforms at season opener
- Lincoln Roch
- 23 hours ago
- 2 min read
The Colorado Buffaloes will take a trip back to their golden age on Friday to honor a football legend.
On Tuesday, head coach Deion Sanders announced that the team will wear the Buffs’ classic uniform configuration and a patch against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets to honor Hall of Fame coach Bill McCartney, who died in January.
The team will don gold helmets, black jerseys, gold pants, white socks, and black cleats. The combination was Colorado’s primary uniform during McCartney's tenure from 1982 through 1994, which saw three consecutive Big Eight titles and the program's first national championship in 1990. A patch on the jerseys will also read “Mac 82-94.”
“(The uniform is) to pay tribute to his time here, which included the national championship, which I pray to God we do that one day,” Sanders said.
McCartney has the most wins of any football coach in CU History, with a 93-55-5 record, and his last season saw running back Rashaan Salaam win the university's first Heisman Trophy.
After retiring, McCartney, a devout Catholic, founded a Christian men's group and several religious books. In 2013, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Junior defensive end Arden Walker grew up hearing stories about the late coach. His father, Arthur Walker, played for Colorado from 1986 through 1989, and has been using McCartney quotes to inspire Arden since he was playing flag football.
“Preaching to the guys, pushing through and having perseverance is something that coach Mac instilled in those guys in the early 90s,” Walker said. “We’re passing on his messages, and even though he’s gone, he’s still here in terms of the spirit and culture of the team.”
At April’s Black and Gold Spring Game, the team's first appearance after the 84-year-old coaches' death, CU Athletics announced that a statue of the late coach would be constructed on the Buff Walk between Folsom Field and Franklin Field.
Sanders criticized the university’s decision to wait until after McCartney's death to build the monument.
“Why we waiting? Wouldn’t we have wanted him to see, being involved in it, to feel it, to feel the love, the respect, the appreciation,” Sanders said postgame.
The decision to build the statue has received criticism from some LGBTQ alumni. In 1992, McCartney delivered a speech at CU that called homosexuality an “an abomination against almighty God.”
That year, he also campaigned for a Colorado ballot measure that allowed for discrimination against the LGBT community. In a statement to The Colorado Sun in June, a university spokesperson said private donations are fully funding the statue.
Colorado takes on Georgia Tech, with whom McCartney's team shared the 1990 National championship, on Friday at 6 p.m. MT (ESPN).