
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 22, 1990                   TAG: 9006220248
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOULDER, COLO.                                LENGTH: Medium

BOOK UNVEILS STRUGGLES OF COLORADO COACH

Colorado coach Bill McCartney has struggled with his temper and his desire for alcohol, from which he now abstains as part of his religious commitment, he says in his upcoming book about Colorado's 1989 season.

"From Ashes to Glory" will be published by Thomas Nelson Publishers, a Christian company in Nashville, Tenn., this summer and is expected to be in bookstores by late August.

McCartney's Colorado Buffaloes last season went undefeated and earned a No. 1 ranking in national polls until they lost to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl.

Apparently capitalizing on his national recognition, McCartney wrote a book about the tumultuous 1989 season, including the cancer death of quarterback Sal Aunese and McCartney's daughter giving birth to Aunese's son before his death. The book was co-written by longtime McCartney acquaintance Dave Diles.

In the book, McCartney writes that the book's primary purpose is sharing his Christian faith. The book is laced with scriptural references and examples of how the Bible comforted and influenced McCartney during the 1989 season.

McCartney, 49, also shares with readers some of his personal struggles.

"I'm not afraid to tell the world that I have a struggle with alcohol; that I have a battle with my temper," he wrote in the book.

He portrayed himself as "not a mad, raving, falling-down drunk, mind you - and not an abusive, bellowing drunk - but a man who constantly had to battle a desire to drink. . . . Some guys get melancholy when they drink; some guys get romantic. But I just got belligerent."

In 1975, he finally realized "that I cannot drink in moderation. Whenever there had been a cocktail party - and there had been lots of them everywhere - I'd always had a drink, then two, then three. I've never been one to merely nurse a drink. If I could be temperate, I wouldn't have a problem."

He discusses his temper in the book's passages on a story by a Denver alternative weekly newspaper that revealed publicly for the first time that McCartney's daughter Kristyn had given birth to Aunese's son in April 1989.

McCartney never commented publicly about the story, but in "From Ashes to Glory," he said he was angry enough to attempt murder.

He said he was able to control his rage only through what might be interpreted as "divine intervention" - a stranger who approached him one afternoon and handed him three, 3-by-5 index cards with a verse of scripture written on each. McCartney said he did not read the cards until after he and his wife Lyndi first showed Kristyn the alternative newspaper's story.

"Looking back from this point in time," McCartney wrote, "I have very little doubt about one thing: Those three cards arrived just in time to save two lives. They saved mine from a possible death penalty or life sentence in prison. And they saved the life of the man I would surely have tried to kill."

McCartney said the scripture verses represented God's message that "the battle is not yours, it is Mine. Just brace yourself and wait on Me."

by CNB