J.J. McCarthy: The Unbearable Lightness of Quarterbacking

J.J. McCarthy has always been the quarterback of someone's future. Is it even his own?

In 1993, Czech tennis star Jana Novotná held the Wimbledon title in the palm of her hand. She led the final set 4 games to 1 with a 40-30 advantage in the 6th game. If you don’t know tennis scores, that means that one more point would give her a decisive 5-1 advantage. She would only need one more game - four more points - to win Wimbledon. It was her serve. This is like having a 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl with the ball in field goal range. Miracle territory.

What happened instead shocked millions of viewers both at the court and watching at home on TV. With the eyes of the world on her, Novotná fell apart. Just listen to the shock of the crowd as victory slides from her grasp.

Shock may be the wrong word. It’s more like horror. The pressure mounted, and Novotná - who had a penchant for choking on the biggest stage - was once again melting down. Everyone in the crowd simultaneously processed that “here we go again” feeling, and Novotná could hear them all do it.

For what it’s worth, Novotná never agreed to call it a choke. Until the day she died, she insisted that her opponent Steffi Graf simply outplayed her. Tip your cap and move on.

Try as she might, she was never able to shake the No-No-Novotná label. If you Google Image search her, the first result won’t be a picture of any of the several championships she won over her career. Instead, you’ll first find this iconic photograph of Novotná crying into the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent, one of the most famous images in Tennis history.

The first in-line image in the New York Times’ obituary of Novotná, provided to them by Denis Paquin of the Associated Press

The pressure that broke Novotná in 1993 is nothing compared to the omnipresent pressure that looms over athletes today. Wimbledon drew a few million viewers in 1993. A Thursday Night Football game can easily triple that. 

The 24-hour news cycle inflames every single quote, every tweet, every possible misstep into a viral scandal. Athletes have to live on constant guard. And it is in the fires of this hell that J.J. McCarthy was forged.

Anointed From Birth

The day before the draft, J.J. McCarthy appeared on the Rich Eisen Show and shared a home video from right before his birth. His father, Jim, practically praying toward the heavens, called him “Daddy’s Little Quarterback”. J.J.’s mother, Megan, a competitive figure skater, scolded Jim for this presumption.

But Jim McCarthy, a youth football coach, was manifesting an inevitable reality. Even as a toddler, J.J. would throw things around the house, breaking lamps and mirrors. His teachers had to “reel him in”, according to his father. 

As J.J. grew up, that chaotic energy poured into sports. His father had him play youth football, of course, but he also played hockey. For a time, hockey was his first passion, and like all multi-sport athletes, he developed skills that could translate from one to the other.

His youth hockey coach, Ralph Lawrence, noticed how much of a feel the thirteen-year-old J.J. played with. It wasn’t technical. He had a sixth sense for where the puck was and what angle to take. Hockey moves much faster than football, and J.J. had a natural instinct for processing those changes in real time. 

In another world, maybe McCarthy blossoms into a hockey pro. But football had its hooks in him from before birth. In fifth grade, his parents got him a personal trainer with a specific focus on playing quarterback. This was always J.J.’s destiny. 

Where would we look to find the chosen messiah to Illinois football, born with preordained destiny to accomplish something historic, hopefully before the age of 33?

Well, Nazareth.

America’s Picture-Perfect Quarterback

In sixth grade, J.J. knew that Nazareth Academy in La Grange Park, Illinois was the best program in the area. He asked Nazareth Academy head coach Tim Racki if he could come work out with the team. McCarthy was already a star in the youth program, but he was just a skinny 11-year-old who couldn’t even throw the ball properly yet. Still, even in that unpolished state, Jim McCarthy knew his son had special traits, and could impress the high school program.