Last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers officially announced the hiring of Mike McCarthy as the franchise’s next head coach.
The 62-year-old — who is now the 17th head coach in Steelers history — is taking over after longtime head coach Mike Tomlin stepped down from his post following Pittsburgh’s 30-6 Wild Card loss to the Houston Texans. Tomlin, who is taking at least one year off from coaching, leaves the Steelers having never suffered a losing season. However, he also led a playoff win drought that the Houston loss prolonged to nine years, driving more and more fans to desire a change.
While McCarthy is not exactly the change many fans had in mind, the next era of Steelers football now rests on his shoulders. For McCarthy, calling this his dream job is an understatement. Growing up in Pittsburgh’s Greenfield neighborhood, he idolized the Steelers as a kid. But his ties to the area go far beyond just the Steelers. McCarthy also has plenty of ties to Pitt and their football program as well.
Upon returning home from his college time in Kansas, McCarthy was eager to find work with his hometown’s school, the University of Pittsburgh. On a hot summer’s night in July of 1989, McCarthy got a hold of Mike Gottfried, Pitt football’s then-head coach, expressing his eager desire over the phone to find work on the coaching staff.
He wasn’t some bum looking for work off the street. McCarthy had served as a graduate assistant for two years at Fort Hays State, a Division-II program where he also studied while obtaining a master’s degree. But in his mid-20s, he was still mostly an unknown.
While Gottfried had to inform McCarthy that there weren’t any jobs available on his staff, he encouraged the young up-and-comer to mail his resume to the university. McCarthy went one step further, showing up the next day with his résumé in hand to introduce himself personally.
It was that kind of old-fashioned technique that eventually landed McCarthy a job on campus, when days later, an assistant departed the team for a better opportunity elsewhere. Gottfried, impressed by McCarthy’s forwardness, went back to him and brought the local kid in as an unpaid graduate assistant.
To support himself financially, McCarthy worked as a toll booth operator on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Taking shifts from midnight to 8 a.m. at Exit 5 in Allegheny Valley — about a half-hour drive from Pitt’s campus — he spent many of his hours carefully studying the playbook of Paul Hackett, the school’s then-offensive coordinator and eventual head coach.
“He was always grinding to make sure he had the best possible answers for everybody to get the job done,” Alex Van Pelt, Pitt’s quarterback at the time, later said. “I think that reflects a lot back to the roots of his upbringing in Pittsburgh.”
McCarthy’s first season with Pitt saw him help oversee a team that went 8-3-1, their best record in six years. The Panthers opened their season on a six-game non-losing streak, winning five and playing to a tie with West Virginia in that year’s rendition of the Backyard Brawl.
Pitt ranked as high as No. 7 in the AP Poll before they suffered a blowout loss to No. 1 Notre Dame. Their season started to unravel, splitting their last four down the stretch. This also marked the end of Gottfried’s tenure as head coach. Hackett was tapped to succeed Gottfried, starting with Pitt’s Sun Bowl win against Texas A&M in El Paso, Texas.
It was a decision that was monumental not just for Pitt’s football program, but for the career of McCarthy as well. In his NFL career, McCarthy is often regarded as a quarterback guru. He credits his success in that department to Hackett.
“Paul Hackett was my mentor,” McCarthy said during his introductory press conference with the Steelers on Tuesday. “Paul taught me the quarterback position [when I] started at the University of Pittsburgh back in 1989. So just had great mentorship through my younger years.”
The following year, McCarthy stayed on as a graduate assistant, now under a full season of Hackett as the head coach. The first time the two met, Hackett was convinced he would scare McCarthy off with the amount of work placed on him.
“I thought I’d drive him out of here in a week or two, knowing he would need to work a ridiculous amount,” Hackett said in a 2024 interview.
Instead, McCarthy dug in even more, committed to his role at the university.
“I just gave him more and more,” Hackett said. “He was such a hard worker and very smart. He was learning all he could about football. When it came to learning about quarterback, he was a sponge. He loved all of the ins and outs and nuances of the position. He jumped all over it.”
His duties while working with Hackett stretched off the field. He babysat Hackett’s son, Nathaniel — “a great kid” in the words of McCarthy — who he would eventually coach against in the NFL when McCarthy was in Dallas and Nathaniel was in Denver, back in a preseason game in 2022.
Pitt ranked as high as No. 13 in the AP Poll during the 1990 season, winning their first two games. But a 52-10 blowout loss on the road at Oklahoma kicked off a spiral, with the Panthers winning just once the rest of the way to finish their disappointing 1990 campaign 3-7-1.
The team did experience somewhat of a rebound in 1991. In their first year as members of the Big East conference, Pitt finished with a winning record of 6-5. While it was an overall improvement, the season ended on a skid where they lost five of six. It completely killed a 5-0 start to the season and caused them to tumble out of the AP rankings. If there was a silver lining to that season, it kicked off with a 34-3 beatdown of West Virginia on their own turf.
In his fourth and final year at Pitt, McCarthy was promoted from graduate assistant to wide receivers coach. This was a year where he really got to shine.
He was elevated to a more important role at a very odd time for the program. On his side of the ball, the Panthers had a litany of weapons at their disposal. Under offensive coordinator Bill Meyers, Pitt’s offense was led by senior quarterback Alex Van Pelt, who led the Big East in completions, attempts, passing yards, touchdowns and interceptions. This guy truly did it all.
One of the big reasons for Van Pelt’s success was sophomore wide receiver Dietrich Jells. Working with McCarthy, Jells put together one of the best receiving seasons in Pitt history. Jells racked up 55 receptions for eight touchdowns and a conference-leading 1,091 receiving yards.
Jells was the first 1,000+ yard wide receiver in program history and stood as the only four-digit Pitt wideout until junior Latef Grim joined him with 1,106 in 1999. It was by far the best year of Jells’ collegiate career. Though Jells still stands as the second in all-time receiving yards in school history, he never would come close to that figure again.
Jells was not the only wide receiver to have a big season, either. Sophomore Billy Davis recorded 503 receiving yards, and senior Chris Bouyer posted 420 yards as well. Meyers and McCarthy had the offense figured out.
Unfortunately for Pitt that year, their defense was absolutely abysmal. Out of 107 schools in the 1992 season, Pitt was second-to-last in defense, allowing an average of 35.8 points per game. They just couldn’t outscore their problems.
None of that was the fault of McCarthy, whose work with the receivers got him noticed on the professional side of the game.
Following the season, Hackett had a chance to return to the NFL, taking the open offensive coordinator job with the Kansas City Chiefs. He lobbied for the Chiefs to hire McCarthy — who Hackett referred to as his “right-hand man” — as well. That goal succeeded, with McCarthy getting hired as an offensive quality control assistant.
Jells was eventually drafted by the Chiefs in 1996, briefly reuniting him and McCarty after the latter was promoted to quarterbacks coach. Unfortunately for Jells, he didn’t make it past training camp with the Chiefs, but he did carve out a four-year NFL career later on.
It was there in Kansas City, though, where McCarthy’s lengthy NFL coaching career began. From there, he was an offensive coordinator in New Orleans and San Francisco.
By 2006, he was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers, where his one and only Super Bowl ring came at the expense of the team he grew up cheering for. After a 13-year run in Green Bay and a five-year tenure in Dallas, McCarthy now comes home with the chance to help repair his hometown team.
He’s walking into an unfavorable situation. The Steelers have no clear option at quarterback, have an aging defensive corps and have a fan base extremely frustrated with their team. But if there’s anyone in the NFL who understands just how much this team means to this city, it’s McCarthy.
The post Mike McCarthy’s local roots go deeper than just Greenfield appeared first on The Pitt News.