A Generous Family Man

With a broad smile and steel-blue eyes, San Diego-born shuttle pilot William C. McCool touched the hearts of people all over the world -- and never forgot them.

Cheering him on alongside his own family at Columbia’s launch were a couple he had stayed with in Switzerland 25 years ago and the contractor who was working on his Houston home.

Saturday, stunned friends and family grappled with the loss of the naval aviator, remembering him as a brilliant student, an accomplished athlete and, most of all, a generous and unpretentious man who was deeply religious and dedicated to his Guamanian wife, Atilana, and three sons.

“When he saw something and decided he wanted to do it, he never let anything stop him, whether that was building a model airplane or going into space,” said his brother, Shawn McCool, a 31-year-old Army helicopter pilot, who spoke from his home in Watertown, N.Y.

Since childhood, William McCool’s passion for flying was nurtured by their father, Barant “Barry” McCool, who was a Navy pilot. As a teenager, William was an avid builder of remote-controlled model airplanes, his brother recalled, paying such attention to detail that even the insides of the cockpits were built to resemble the interiors of real planes.

McCool, 41, spoke often of his pride in being an astronaut. He was “just so amazed to be a part of this group of people,” his brother said.

Though McCool hopscotched the country as a military man, he retained deep ties with friends, mentors and neighbors. “He was always the very best that anyone could embody,” said Al Cantello, the U.S. Naval Academy’s track and field coach who had kept in touch with McCool since the days he captained the midshipmen’s cross-country team.

When he learned he would at last be heading into space, McCool invited his former coach to send a personal memento along. Cantello had a special pennant made for the occasion, commemorating the number of times his running teams have beaten Army teams. “He never forgot anybody,” said an emotional Cantello. “Every person in the world should have one Willie McCool in their life.”

McCool was born in San Diego, then moved as a boy to Lubbock, Texas. His mother, Audrey McCool, remarried, and her new husband, Barry McCool, adopted Willie and his sister, Kirstie. Little brother Shawn came later. From an early age, McCool followed in his father’s footsteps. He went to middle school and high school in Guam, where his adopted father was stationed. There he met Atilana. The pair drifted apart, and Atilana married and had children, but the two reconnected later and wed.

McCool excelled easily. He received a bachelor of science from the Naval Academy in 1983, graduating second in his class. He received a master’s in computer science in 1985 from the University of Maryland. He earned a second master’s in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1992.

“We’re obviously very distressed,” the 62-year-old Audrey McCool said outside her Las Vegas home. “We want the space mission to go on. We don’t want those people to have died in vain.”