Former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney has returned at age 68 to lead the Christian men’s ministry Promise Keepers he founded in 1990.
McCartney, who resigned as the group’s president five years ago, also brought back former executive and current board member Raleigh Washington to serve as president, the Denver-based nonprofit announced Wednesday.
McCartney’s return as chief executive and chairman of the board is expected to revitalize a movement that drew more than a million men to 22 stadium conferences in 1996 but last year attracted only 50,000 men to seven events.
As former board chairman Sam Winder prepared to leave Promise Keepers, he recruited McCartney as “someone he could hand the baton back to,” spokesman Ed O’Brien said Thursday.
Promise Keepers has been criticized by women and gay- rights organizations offended by the remarks of some of its fundamentalist Christian speakers: Homosexuality is a sin, and women should play a subordinate role in families.
O’Brien attributed declining attendance to the novelty wearing off for men who had attended several conferences.
