PITTSBURGH — The raindrops patter on Mike McCarthy’s windshield as his SUV rolls through Calvary Catholic Cemetery. It’s just an eight-minute drive from the Steelers’ practice facility, over the Hot Metal Bridge, along the Monongahela River and to Greenfield, where he was raised. Sometimes, McCarthy finds himself taking a detour here to catch up on phone calls, or just to let himself remember moments that are impossible to forget.
He stops at the corner of the cemetery and points to the gravel lot just beyond a chain-link fence. He can picture the basketball court that used to be right there. After school, he’d drop his bags at the house and race a block and a half down Greenfield Avenue with a basketball under his arm and his brother, Joe McCarthy III, by his side.
“My brother and I would come here every day,” McCarthy says. “I mean, every day.”
The memory fades quickly. The 62-year-old coach, wearing a Steelers sweatshirt and Greenfield baseball cap, turns over his right shoulder and points past the trees.
“That’s my brother’s burial in that mausoleum,” McCarthy says.
Nostalgia is complicated. It comes from two Greek words — nostos (meaning homecoming) and algos (pain). McCarthy has felt both parts of the word lately.
As a kid growing up in Greenfield, he could only dream of coaching the Pittsburgh Steelers. From his office window at the team’s Southside facility, he can see the lights of Bud Hammer Field, where he played Little League. After long days at the office, he finds his dad waiting for him on the front porch and his mom ready to catch him up on the parts of the Pirates game that he missed.
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When owner Art Rooney II introduced McCarthy as the Steelers’ next head coach on Jan. 27 — which would have been his grandfather Art “The Chief” Rooney’s birthday — Rooney opened by saying that the founder of the franchise would have been thrilled to have a head coach from Pittsburgh. McCarthy is in a unique position to understand what he referred to as the privilege and the weight that comes with being the franchise’s fourth head coach since 1969, when Chuck Noll was hired and the Super Bowl standard was set.
During that news conference, the room was filled with McCarthy’s relatives. Parents. Sisters. Everyone’s kids. It felt like a family reunion. The only one not present was his brother, Joe — at least not physically. In his pocket, McCarthy carried the prayer card from his brother’s funeral. His sisters and mother, clad in black and gold, gripped their own prayer cards.
That’s the other side of coming home. It’s impossible to drive to work, or get a coffee, or really go anywhere without thinking about the brother who would have been the most proud of all.
“I keep using the word ‘surreal,’ but I mean, it’s past the surreal part of it,” McCarthy says. “It’s really … heavy …
“Everything reminds me of Joe. You can’t go anywhere around here without thinking about something that you did with Joe.”
McCarthy pulls out of the cemetery and onto Greenfield Avenue. From this point, at the top of the avenue, to the end of it, where his dad owned a bar, is not even two miles. The story of McCarthy’s life was written on this winding street that snakes through a small, working-class corner of Pittsburgh where the Monongahela River bends. Who he is and where he’s from are intertwined.
“I’ve always been raised to have pride in your family, but also to have a lot of pride in where you come from,” McCarthy says. “Not only have a lot of pride being from Western PA, but pride in your neighborhood. When people ask you where you’re from, I’d say Greenfield.”
A block and a half from the cemetery, the coach points to a three-story, red-brick home with a green awning.
“I grew up right here,” McCarthy says. “1128.”
The McCarthy family: Mike (right) and Joe III sit on either side of their mother Ellen. Mike’s sisters are Kellie, sitting on her mother’s lap, Ellen, being held by dad Joe Jr., and Colleen, laughing up front. (Courtesy of the McCarthy family)
The kitchen was the smallest room in the house — but usually the most full, with family and the smell of pork chops, stuffed shells, soup and (McCarthy’s favorite) halušky, a dish with noodles and sautéed cabbage brought to the region by immigrants that’s become a Pittsburgh staple.
“I’m three-quarters Irish and 25 percent Czechoslovakian. My dad always used to tell me ‘That’s the best part of you,’” McCarthy says, with a playful punch in the arm. “He’d always punch you in the arm because of his love for his mother.”
Each night, Mike’s sister Colleen, the oldest of the five kids, helped her mother in the kitchen while the two younger sisters, Ellen and Kellie, set the table. The family had a small but important rule: No one could eat until all five kids and both parents were home. It was one of the many ways they were taught to stick together and look out for one another.
“Michael,” as his sisters call him, in particular embraced the spirit of the lesson instilled at the dinner table. A leader of his own family before he was entrusted with NFL football teams, one of his first coaching jobs was leading his youngest sister Kellie’s grade-school basketball team to the diocesan championship game, putting Gatorade in their water bottles to make them believe they were unstoppable.
“He’s number two in the birth order, but you would think he was number one,” Colleen said. “He was very protective of everyone.”
McCarthy turns a corner onto a back alley behind 1128. It was here that Mike and Joe used to throw baseballs off the back of the house. One summer when they ran out, they snagged their mother’s signed Roberto Clemente ball and one from the 1971 World Series team. The story sounds almost identical to “The Sandlot.” The only thing missing is the dog.
“We were two dumb kids. So we took the ball out and said ‘Hey, just make sure we don’t scuff it up,” McCarthy laughs. “That didn’t last long.”
While baseball was McCarthy’s most natural sport and football (which he didn’t play until his junior year of high school) became his profession, basketball was the game he and Joe first loved. Decades ago, his dad procured a half-moon backboard and enlisted some uncles to help install it in the backyard.
“They measured, and it was 9-foot-11,” McCarthy says with a hearty chuckle. “So they pulled it back out. It was a big ordeal. They put some rocks in. They put it back in and measured it again. It was 10 foot an inch and a half.”
He remembers his dad looking at the hoop, shaking his head.
Ohh, it will make you a better shooter.
How the backyard at 1128 Greenfield looks today. (Mike DeFabo / The Athletic)
The pole holding the hoop upright is now covered in rust. The tattered net hangs by a few remaining threads. But it stands as firmly as ever, like the McCarthy family, cemented into the rugged soil of Greenfield.
“That thing’s about 50 or 60 years old. We always say that thing ain’t never falling dahn,” McCarthy says, his Pittsburgh accent punctuating the last word.
Joe McCarthy Jr., the father of five, grew up in Greenfield in the area locals call “dahn the run.” He was a Korean War veteran who worked at J&L Steel before becoming a police officer, firefighter and bar owner. A man of principle, stubborn in a good way, he often spoke to his children in sayings that McCarthy still uses with his players.
If you tell the truth, you only need to tell your story once.
Don’t leave until the job is finished.
Always finish what you started.
“He was a problem solver,” McCarthy’s sister Ellen said. “People in our family, friends and neighbors would always call him in times of need.”
Meanwhile, his mother, Ellen, worked a variety of restaurant jobs and as an administrative assistant for a district judge. Somehow, she found time to volunteer as the vice president of the Greenfield Organization and the president of the Saint Rosalia Athletic Association. McCarthy can’t ever remember playing a basketball or baseball game without his parents and siblings in the stands.
“For as tough as my dad was, she taught you how to compete,” McCarthy says of his mom. “Anytime you’d talk sports, she’d be quick to whip out her yearbook and remind us she averaged 20-something points.”
After Joe passed away, the rest of the kids moved their parents off the avenue to an adjacent part of the neighborhood not even a mile away called “the bluff,” an area atop the hill with a picturesque view of Pittsburgh that they don’t sell on postcards. It’s quieter here and close to two sisters — Kellie and Ellen — who live just across the street.
Joe Jr., 89, and Ellen, 84, don’t live in the old house anymore, but McCarthy’s mother still visits almost every week after Saturday’s 4 p.m. mass. She picks up two extra church bulletins and takes them to their friends who still live in their old home.
McCarthy and his parents after the Steelers introduced him as their new head coach. (Karl Roser / Pittsburgh Steelers)
While McCarthy and his wife, Jessica, look for a home in Pittsburgh, the coach has spent the offseason staying with his parents to soak in every minute of extra time. His dad does crossword puzzles at night while his mother watches reruns of McCarthy’s old Green Bay games.
“They’ve always just wanted time,” says McCarthy, who hasn’t spent this much time in Pittsburgh since he left for Kansas City in 1993. “This profession I’m in, it’s just such a sprint all the time. You’re always on. You don’t get to turn it off very often.”
On McCarthy’s tour of Greenfield, there’s a story for every step of the way. Often, McCarthy is in the middle of one when he’s interrupted by another memory.
Right there, between the two telephone poles, was where they used to play street football. Over there is where a crazy German shepherd lived. That’s the corner you had to avoid if you didn’t want to get picked on by the older kids. That’s his dad’s rental property where he cut the grass every week and, over there, the one where he dug the foundation by hand with his cousin.
Finally, the coach arrives at Magee Field — a sprawling complex centered in the heart of Greenfield with two baseball fields, several basketball courts and a swimming pool. An “inner-city country club,” McCarthy calls it, thinking back on a time when his biggest worries were hiding his ice cream money under his towel so the older kids wouldn’t steal it, and making sure he got home before the streetlights came on.
When they got older, Mike and Joe would come back after dinner, pop the lock to the cage and flip the lights on to play basketball for hours. The police came by occasionally; they’d look the other way.
“My mom would say, ‘Nothing good happens after the street lights go on in Greenfield,’” McCarthy remembers. “I said, ‘You’ve got it wrong. All the good stuff happens after the street lights go on.’”
Sitting in the parking lot, McCarthy pictures himself running up and down the court in his green Joe McCarthy Bar and Grill T-shirt, playing summer-league ball with Joe. Decades melt away, and for a moment, the coach can hear the ball bouncing and the kids splashing in the pool nearby.
“I hate to say the word ‘avoid,’” McCarthy says. “But I didn’t come back as much after he passed.”
Brothers Mike and Joe McCarthy. (Courtesy of the McCarthy family)
On the prayer card from Joe’s funeral, the one McCarthy keeps in his wallet, the poem “The Dash” by Linda Ellis is printed. It talks about the two dates on a tombstone — and the dash in between that represents how a life was lived. Joe filled that dash in ways that are still felt. His athletic ability and quick wit made him a friend to everyone he met. McCarthy always admired his brother’s people skills and incredible recall. Years later, he could tell you exactly how many points everyone scored in a summer league championship game. Though Joe was four years younger than Mike, they were inseparable.
“If you wanted to have a younger brother, he’s what you wanted,” McCarthy says. “I could take him everywhere.”
Joe graduated from Penn State and Duquesne School of Law before starting his own law firm and serving as the state deputy attorney general. He married Karen, his best friend, and coached his three kids — Matthew, Michael and Victoria — in baseball, softball, basketball and flag football. For years, he ran the men’s summer league at Magee Field that the two brothers dreamed of one day playing in when they shot hoops near the cemetery.
“From a young age, he was just such a good guy,” McCarthy says. “Joe was always the voice of reason in his friend group. It’s no surprise he was a lawyer.”
On Jan. 21, 2015, days after the Packers lost to the Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game, Joe was playing racquetball at a local gym. He collapsed and was pronounced dead from a heart attack. He was 47.
“He did so much for someone who lived only to 47,” McCarthy says. “He did so much for others.”
When Mike Tomlin resigned last winter, leaving the Steelers searching for a head coach for the first time in almost two decades, McCarthy emerged as a contender. They set an interview for Jan. 21 — the 11th anniversary of Joe’s passing.
Everywhere he looked that day, McCarthy saw cardinals, which some consider to be a sign that a loved one is near. The family took it as a sign that this job was meant to be.
“When that interview date was set, it just felt like he’s always been with us and a part of that process,” his sister Kellie said. “In some ways, I don’t even want to talk about it in terms of past tense, because I feel his presence that he’s with us and he’s always watching over us. I’m sure he’s absolutely delighted that Mike is the coach of the Steelers.”
McCarthy reaches the end of Greenfield Avenue and makes a right into “the run.” He points out the green house with aluminum siding where his dad was raised. There’s the church where his mother made them stay for two masses — one in English and a second in Latin. There’s the place where his cousins used to hop the train to go fishing at Panther Hollow. There, under the overpass, is “the best basketball court in the city,” the only dry place to shoot hoops during a rainstorm.
And there’s the weatherworn, red brick building with the aluminum awning and a sign advertising $3.50 IC Light drafts. It’s called Zano’s Pub House now, but for decades this was Joe McCarthy’s Bar and Grill.
“The outside hasn’t changed a bit,” McCarthy says.
“Do you want to go inside?”
The question hangs in the air for a minute. It’s intended for the passenger in the front seat, but it’s also one McCarthy has to wrestle with himself.
Zano’s Pub House now, formerly known as Joe McCarthy’s Bar and Grill. (Mike DeFabo / The Athletic)
On a typical Sunday, the McCarthy family went to church and then to the bar to clean. To this day, when McCarthy smells beer or whiskey, he thinks about breaking down the liquor bottles and emptying the runoff from the beer tap into the sewer. The worst part was cleaning the bathroom in the basement.
“You can imagine going down there on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night,” McCarthy says. “I used to despise having to clean it Sunday morning. My dad was a stickler. He had this chemical that I was supposed to put in the corners. Sometimes I’d throw it all over the wall. When he walked down, he’d be angry with us.”
How much of this s— did you throw on the wall?
When the bar was pristine, Joe and Mike played pool while their dad did the books. Often, they invited some friends over and sat at the bar, watching the Steelers during their dynastic Steel Curtain run. When Mike got older, he worked behind the bar on Saturday nights, learning the lessons they don’t teach in college.
The younger sisters often played with their Barbies on the bowling machine, while Colleen, the oldest, helped her mother in the kitchen. During the summer, their father hosted a picnic for regulars who became more than friends and often were known only by their nicknames, like “Cowboy.” The adults played pickup softball games in the adjacent lot and then came inside for a beer and Ellen McCarthy’s famous crab cakes.
It’s more than just a bar. The McCarthy family considered this establishment an extension of their own home.
Until very recently, the last time McCarthy was inside was the day of his brother’s funeral. A massive snowstorm swept through Pittsburgh. As Mike was driving home, his father called to say a car accident shut down the parkway. Mike pulled off at the bar with his family, had a couple beers and toasted his brother.
“In a lot of ways, frankly, this is for Joe,” McCarthy says. “I feel like he had such a hand in this. No one would have been prouder.
“God, I wish he was here.”
Do you want to go inside?
The coach thinks about it for a second. He decides he’s not ready to re-open that door.
