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William Paul McCartney 1 48193 734? Riverview, Wayne County, MI 1940(08/22) |
According to The Hartford Institute for Religion Research "PK, as it was popularly called, emerged from the obscurity of a small 1991 gathering of around four thousand men at its first conference in Colorado to fill stadiums throughout the nation for several years during the 1990s. By 1997, PK supporters estimated at 800,000 strong filled the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for 'Stand in the Gap: A Sacred Assembly of Men.' That PK event was voted the second most–newsworthy story of 1997." As I recall, the Boulder conference in 1992 had around 20,000 men, and the Boulder conference had close to 50,000 men(the capacity of Folsom Field). This meant in 1994, they needed to go to more than one conference in 1994 and later.
According to Time Magazine "In the spring of 1990 he and his friend Dave Wardell, an official of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, were preparing to travel from Boulder to Pueblo"
Bill McCarney was head coach of the University of Colorado football team from 1982–1994. Per wikipedia " McCartney's 1990 team was crowned as national champions by the Associated Press, splitting the title with Georgia Tech, first in the final Coaches' Poll." Folsom Field is the home field for the University of Colorado football team. I heard Bill McCartney and other speak live in 1993. While we were on a lunch break once during the conference, others and I were eating box lunches beside a path near the stadium and Bill McCarney walked by us quickly with a few football player looking guys around him.
As I recall, PK had planned on doing Stand in the Gap in 1996 but it was pushed back a year in part because they didn't want it too soon after Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March in 1995(10/16). There seems to been a common belief that had it taken place
closer to when originally planned they may have had more than the 800,000 men, since 1996 was closer to PK's peak. Per wikipedia, the high estimate for the crowd at Million Man March is 837,000.
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