BOULDER — Coach Mac stood shoulder-to-shoulder with two large, black fenceposts Saturday. That part broke Bob Shorman’s heart a little.
“I’m OK with it being on the practice field,” the Boulder resident, a CU season-ticket holder since 1987, told me before the Buffs took on Arizona State on Senior Day.
As we looked across the street from the Wesley Foundation United Methodist Chapel across Folsom Street, and into Franklin Field, Bob shrugged.
“Maybe it could be over at the entrance (at Franklin Field) over there,” he said. “Even the concourse on the field level — I would much rather see it over there. But I don’t know that our input would change anything.”
The Buffs’ long-promised statue of ex-CU football coach Bill McCartney statue was unveiled early Friday night. Although If you happen to blink walking around CU’s football footprint, you’ll miss it. Actually, if you don’t go inside Franklin Field, you’ll probably miss it entirely.
The statue is tucked into in the far northeast corner of the Buffs’ outdoor practice field. Aesthetically, it was gorgeous, with CU’s all-time winningest football coach standing with arms folded against a golden Flatiron sunset.
Geographically? Geographically, it was curious — at least to the Buffs fans I spoke to Saturday.
“Bill McCartney is the face of this program, really,” said Dan Kothenbeutel of Montrose, a CU season-ticket holder since 1981. “And it’s a shame that he’s not out in front of the stadium. It really is.”
As a longtime Boulder resident, Dan used to climb the trees that were adjacent to Folsom in the ’70s to get a glimpse of CU tussling with those Oklahoma and Nebraska teams of old.
“It this point, it would have been a great time to put him right out front (of Folsom),” Kothenbeutel said. “Where he deserves to be.”
From Shorman’s tailgate at the Wesley Chapel, directly across the street from Folsom Field, he actually had one of the better street-level public views of the display — even if the line-of-sight was directly at Coach Mac’s left ear, from about 30 yards away.
The location of the statue was a joint decision of the McCartney family, the athletic department and the donors who paid for it. There was concern, given some of the campus backlash against honoring McCartney, that the statue would be a target for protests. Or just drunk undergrads being drunk undergrads.
All of which is completely understandable. But to Kothenbeutel’s point, wouldn’t a spot inside Folsom — either at field level or on the concrete plazas facing the field from the Dal Ward Athletic Center or the Champions Center, be just as secure? And more public-facing? Something Buffs fans could see on the regular?
“They should have probably put it inside the stadium, by the Buffalo (statue),” Sean Hedges, CU class of 2011, told me. “I mean, he’s the all-time winningest coach in the program’s history. You need to kind of represent that in the stadium. Or name the field after him or something like that.
“And it’s kind of sad that it took this long, too — it took him passing to finally get recognized, which is not fair to him. He should have been able to see that in person, too.”
On one hand, Coach Mac is overlooking the practice field, as he should. Forever watching the program he put on the map and stamped into the national conversation. The symbolism is poetry.
“All business,” former CU tailback J.J. Flannigan told me before the statue was unveiled at a private ceremony Friday. “Get the job done. Work hard. That’s what he was known for. (If you messed up) halfway through practice, he said, ‘We’re starting over.’ We didn’t want that. Put the work in, know your assignments, and let’s get back in the locker room.
“Did we complain? Yes. But we liked being out there and playing for national championships even better.”
In 1990, McCartney got the Buffs over the line and into the immortality. It’s still the most recent national football title won by any current Big 12 member.
Since the announcement of the statue this past spring, the Buffs have deferred to the McCartney family and to the donors who paid for it. Which is also why the unveiling was a private one, with roughly 400 in attendance including current CU coach Deion Sanders and the Buffs squad, according to the university.
“I feel like more Buffs fans would have shown up for (that),” Hedges said. “I know they had a bunch of security (Friday) night because they were worried about people doing something with it. But I think enough people would have shown up and shown their respect.”
When plans for the statue were announced earlier this year, some campus voices recoiled in disgust, citing McCartney’s work with the Promise Keepers and a 1992 speech at CU he called homosexuality “an abomination against almighty God.”
CU’s student body president, Boulder faculty assembly chair Alastair Norcross and the staff council tri-chairs sent a letter to chancellor Justin Schwartz recently seeking countermeasures for honoring McCartney. That included annual awards of $1,990 for staff and faculty and an annual $1,990 scholarship for students for who promote community belonging — a nod to Coach Mac’s 1990 championship.
The university on Friday released a response in a letter from Schwartz saying he would be open to discussing it further. Norcross told me he and the Chancellor have “had several conversations” about the matter.
“This is 2025 and everyone is going have their own opinion and everyone is going to have their individual thoughts on different things,” Flannigan said. “I wanted to be here honor the coach and that’s what this is about. It’s not about how he felt about religion or marriage or sexual orientation. (This statue) is not about that. There is a time and a place for that debate and that argument and that’s fair for anyone to have that opinion (against honoring him). This (statue unveiling) is really about honoring the man as a coach and what he meant to the players he coached.
“Hey, there are statues that go up in America and statues that come down for 1,000 reasons … we have to make sure we keep things in perspective when it comes to things like honoring a coach and what he’s done … If there’s no Bill McCartney (here), you don’t know much about CU.”