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Coach Bill McCartney won a national championship in 1990 with the University of Colorado and later founded the international men’s ministry, Promise Keepers. As an assistant to legendary Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler, McCartney also offered Les Miles his first full-time coaching position. After accepting the head coaching job at Colorado, he lured Miles the graduate assistant to Boulder.

McCartney gives 225 his take on Miles:

“The best way to understand Les Miles is to understand who an offensive lineman is to a football team, because that’s what he played. They are a special breed. They are unselfish, rarely celebrated, and not really the focus of attention. They listen well and are detail conscious. A good offensive lineman is a master of fundamentals. Those attributes come painstakingly slow for some people, but not for Les.

I remember when he came back after being in the business world, and had a meeting with Coach Schembechler and he told him ‘Coach, business is challenging, but now I know that I want to be a football coach.’ So he became a graduate assistant in 1980, and they would report to me. It was easy to see that he was going to be a good coach, so I took him with me to Colorado.

In Colorado he was single, so he went on the road recruiting for extended periods of time. He got us in on a lot of great players. He recruited guys out of Southern California. I just remember him coming back after being out for weeks and saying, ‘OK we’ve got this guy, and we’ve got this guy, and this guy is coming.’

You know, coming out of college, Les was a good-looking guy and the ladies liked him a lot. But he didn’t go for all that. He is a good husband. There are a lot of unique pressures with the LSU job, and if you’re going to wear that hat, there are a lot of demands on your time. But he always puts his marriage and his family first. Those are his priorities.”