LA GRANGE PARK, Ill. — The father of the future Minnesota Vikings quarterback steps forward, swipes his phone and leans over to show a photo.
“How awesome is this?” asks Jim McCarthy.
The image shows a child with tousled blond hair wearing an oversized Iowa State football jersey. He could weigh 85 pounds, soaking wet. Frankly, JJ looks like a little kid.
“Wild, huh?”
What’s Actually What’s wild is how normal this all feels. The family’s furry dogs, Hubert and Blue, are standing on a fence in the kitchen, barking. JJ’s mother, Megan, a project manager for a staffing agency, is downstairs, taking work calls on her laptop. It’s a mid-July morning, about 15 miles from downtown Chicago. NFL training camps are coming up. And if it weren’t for Jim’s gray hoodie with a tiny purple-and-gold print on it, you wouldn’t know a member of this household played high school football, let alone was a first-round pick by the Vikings.
There are no framed shirts on the wall. There are no football photos in the hallway. There is a kitchen table and a living room and this cluttered screened-in patio. And there sits Jim, who works in sales for a waste management company, sauntering along as if he were drinking beer with his buddies.
He’s rewatching the night that led to the Iowa State photo when his phone vibrates with a Twitter notification:
Sources: Minnesota Vikings No. 10 overall pick JJ McCarthy signs a four-year, fully guaranteed contract worth $21.85 million, including a $12.71 million signing bonus and a team option for a fifth year. photo.twitter.com/Cc9CE8A4nj
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 19, 2024
I show Jim my phone.
“What is this?” he asks, leaning forward to look. “Oh! OK.”
“Did you know this was happening?”
“Not at all. Awesome!”
“You… didn’t… even… know…?”
“Had no idea!”
A few minutes later, Megan slides open the door to the screened-in patio and says she’s going to do some shopping.
“Did you see J. drawing?” Jim asks.
“Huh?” Megan answers.
“J signed his contract,” says Jim.
“Seriously?” Megan asks. “He doesn’t give us a warning about anything!”
Jim laughs, shrugs and says, “That’s the way we are.”
The family didn’t fly to Minnesota for JJ’s introductory press conference. Jim has yet to meet Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell. When asked what he thinks about JJ potentially sitting behind veteran Sam Darnold to start the season, the father talks as if his son works in finance.
“If you want to get promoted in life, do something to earn it,” Jim says. “It’s a career. At the end of the day, it’s a job where you have to perform to get promoted. So guess what? Either f—ing perform, or find another job.”
All of this may sound like the McCarthy parents are a little removed from their son’s success. But it’s actually the opposite. As a family, they decided long ago that space and normalcy would give their child the chance to be… well, a kid.
Thank you for inviting me @IowaStateFB @ISUMattCampbell @JimHofher @CoachGolesh @CoachDHoodjer @CoachJGordo @EDGYTIM @AlexHalsted @NxtLevelAtx photo.twitter.com/VR7A6YgMCq
— JJ McCarthy (@jjmccarthy09) March 25, 2018
JJ McCarthy’s first private quarterbacks coach rises from his seat on some metal bleachers to simulate a throw.
“So he moves like this,” says Greg Holcomb, miming a rollout to the left.
He rotates his hips, simulating a weapon loop.
“And we were like, ‘What?!'” Holcomb says in disbelief. “That was here. When he was So young.”
“Here” is a drab artificial turf field in Doerhoefer Park, about 10 miles from the McCarthys’ home. This is where, after one of their first sessions, with the sun setting and Megan waiting by the car, Holcomb said to JJ, “Man, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a fifth-grader throw the ball as smoothly, naturally, effortlessly as you do.”
From that point on, time blurred. Jim took JJ to a camp at North Central College in Naperville, Ill.; JJ pitched; Iowa State coaches approached JJ; Jim texted Holcomb about what was happening; Holcomb excitedly replied; the Iowa State coaches invited JJ to camp; Holcomb told Jim they were going to make him an offer; Cyclones head coach Matt Campbell saw JJ pitch the following week and extended him an offer then; JJ called Holcomb to tell him; and Holcomb replied, “You got an offer, right? I f—ing knew it.” Then they took the photo that Jim still has.
The offer and subsequent growth spurt put JJ’s recruiting into overdrive. Holcomb’s business boomed because local parents knew he was JJ’s coach. As Holcomb managed the influx of trainees, he wondered how JJ would handle the fame. One weekend, Urban Meyer walked around Ohio Stadium with his arm, trying to convince JJ to promote Ohio State. The next weekend, Joe Burrow called to pitch JJ to LSU. Social media feeds were filled with support and hate from so many different fan bases. Mailboxes filled with handwritten letters. A call from a coach here, a text message to respond to there.
Suddenly, JJ was trying to win games for Nazareth Academy on Friday nights, impress college coaches on Saturdays, do homework on Sundays, and be a kid during the week. Jim, Megan, JJ’s sisters, Caitlin and Morgan, and his now-fiancée, Katya Kuropas, tried to help him. When Ohio State’s new coach, Ryan Day, shocked the family during a private meeting by saying the school didn’t have the offer Meyer had once promised, Megan urged JJ to visit Michigan. While JJ’s appreciation for Iowa State’s initial belief remained—Jim even says, “We still “love Matt Campbell” — there was something about Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh’s belief in the young quarterback that made JJ fall in love.
There, during JJ’s freshman year of high school in Ann Arbor, JJ decided he didn’t need his parents in a management role, but as a support system.
“I just want you to be mommy and daddy,” he told his parents then.
Jim and Megan McCarthy with their son JJ after he led Michigan to victory in the national championship game against Washington. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Jim McCarthy still stands on the screened-in backyard patio, showing several photos.
He finds a photo of what JJ calls his “GOAT book,” a diary in which JJ writes inspirational messages.
“Look at this: Brady, the mindset of a champion… Michael Jordan’s 10 rules for success… Kobe Bryant… This was all in high school. This is how he thinks… Muhammad Ali.”
He flips through the photos on his phone again.
“This is something a lot of people don’t know about him…”
When JJ was just a junior in high school, Megan set up a giant whiteboard in his room. Every week, he’d fill it with ink from a whiteboard marker, breaking down his opponents. He’d write down the defense’s primary coverages. He’d pick defenders to attack.
Jim showed the picture of JJ’s whiteboard before the 2019 state championship game against Mount Carmel. There were notes all over the board: On trips, that angle takes the receiver vertically… Easily their worst cover angle… Call McDaniels.
“That was (a reminder) for him to call Ben McDaniels (the former quarterbacks coach at Michigan), who had recruited him,” Jim says.
“So what happened in that game? We lost,” Jim says. “It was hailing from left to right. Okay, he comes home and he’s obviously pissed. The next morning he wakes up and says, ‘I gotta go for a run.’ It’s 6 in the morning. He leaves. I go to his room. The whole whiteboard has changed.”
Jim swipes the phone and brings up an image straight out of “A Beautiful Mind.” An NFL logo is beautifully drawn in the center of the whiteboard. At the top, in bold, is the score of the game: 37-13. Phrases and quotes are scattered throughout.
This s— ain’t easy… What are you willing to do?… Dreams wouldn’t be dreams if they were easy… Overrated… Don’t bounce around in the pocket… Two hands on the ball… How bad do you want it?
Look what we found on the street poles on 31st Street in LGP. @jjmccarthy09 photo.twitter.com/Jf9BdCKi8p
— Nazareth Academy Football (@FootballNaz) April 1, 2024
The next photo on Jim’s phone is another telling image. Written in sloppy handwriting on a sheet of loose-leaf paper is the message: One goal: to become the best quarterback that’s ever been here.
JJ put that on the wall of his freshman dorm room in Ann Arbor. And Tom Brady?
“We always said, if your friends don’t laugh at your goals, you never set them high enough,” says Jim.
JJ became one of Michigan’s most successful quarterbacks ever, beating Day’s Ohio State team three times, removing his customary eye black so Day could see him directly. As Michigan romped to a national championship, Jim and Megan largely stayed out of the spotlight. The only responsibility Jim took on—at JJ’s behest—was dropping off checks to local children’s hospitals in the city of each team Michigan played.
This all sounds so advanced, so far beyond his years—almost a professional mindset at such a young age. How do parents instill that kind of big-picture vision in a child? What parenting strategies inspire this kind of awareness? What’s it like to see a child so dedicated to achieving his goals?
I asked Jim about this in a roundabout way.
“His life has really taken off,” Jim says, “and he’s done well. But he’s still a young boy. I want him to make mistakes. There’s so much he has to learn. He’s still a 21-year-old boy.”
Good times as Megan and Jim McCarthy share the morning with@tomhouse. photo.twitter.com/0k1W1Ibjj2
— Todd J. Anson (@TJA4Michigan) December 31, 2022
Years ago, before fame came, Holcomb asked JJ to babysit his son Sam.
JJ seized the opportunity. He showed up with Katya and together they took on the responsibility. JJ’s best work? Making a few grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Sam thought they were the best he’d ever had,” says Holcomb, “simply because JJ made them.”
I enjoyed the great game today where Sammy Holcomb and the Tiny Mite Patriots dominated 49-0! @NxtLevelAtx @QBCoachHolc photo.twitter.com/oumGSz5a8c
— JJ McCarthy (@jjmccarthy09) October 28, 2018
Years later, Sam is now in the seventh grade. And funnily enough, not only does he play quarterback, he is also considered the best in the country at his age.
Michigan was the first school to offer him about a month ago. Jim informed JJ of the news and JJ immediately sent Sam a direct message.
Holcomb has a screenshot of it.
“Congrats, fam,” Holcomb says, reading JJ’s words out loud. “Well deserved for all the work you’ve put in. But I’m here to tell you that you haven’t even begun and haven’t even scratched the surface of your potential. I’ll love you for the rest of your life, but please, if you can promise me one thing, keep working your balls off until you hang up your boots. Let me know if you ever need anything.
“Just the beginning.”
There is also a hidden message for Holcomb in that last sentence. It is the beginning of a much-trodden parenting arc.
Jim is one of the few who can relate to Holcomb’s situation, so Holcomb has gone to ask for advice. The general theme in Jim’s answers? Be a father, not an overbearing manager or coach. And if the child likes it — like, Real loves it — I don’t know what all he can achieve.
(Top photo: Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
