After transforming the University of Colorado’s football team, he founded the Promise Keepers, a masculine revivalist group that drew millions of supporters.

Bill McCartney, the former University of Colorado football coach who became a prominent religious figure in the 1990s after founding the Promise Keepers movement, died Friday at the age of 84.

He led the Colorado Buffaloes to a national title and started a movement urging men to take responsibility for their faith, families, and communities.

A religious conversion in his 30s helped inspire McCartney to found Promise Keepers, which drew millions of men to events in the early 1990s.

He coached Colorado to a national championship in 1990. In retirement he led the Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian group for “godly men.”