J.J. McCarthy’s NFL debut is a road game at home.
When the Vikings play the Bears at Soldier Field tonight at 7:15 p.m. local time, the second-year quarterback will be just 15 miles where he grew up in La Grange Park, Ill. There, he helped Nazareth Academy to a state championship in 2018 as a sophomore and made a name for himself in a much earlier time slot: Friday mornings at 6 a.m.
Illinois doesn’t allow football coaches to coach in the spring, but Nazareth has an open gym before school on Friday mornings in the spring, where senior players organize practices. McCarthy’s father, Jim, asked longtime Nazareth coach Tim Racki if J.J. could attend, saying he was only in sixth grade but liked to challenge himself against older, better competition.
“He dropped him off and I figured a kid that age, you’re not going to come out every Friday and get your tail up at 6 a.m.,” Racki told me. “Sure enough, all through sixth, seventh, eighth grade, every spring, he’d be at open gym, throwing a high school ball he could barely palm with all these big high school guys.”
And so it was that by the time McCarthy was a freshman, he’d already been around the team three years. Though he played on junior varsity as a freshman (“He was small and skinny,” Racki said), when he took over as the varsity starter the next year, he’d been around as long as anyone else.
“It’s truly remarkable, his self-confidence and how much he wanted to win, even at that age,” Louie Stec, a senior guard on Nazareth’s 2018 championship team who later walked on and earned a scholarship at Iowa, told me. “He’s always wanted to be great. It’s fascinating to see (him in sixth grade) — usually kids at that age, they’re trying to play video games, have fun, ride their bikes, go see a movie. He’s trying to get a win at that age, which is why he’s where he is today.”
Racki can remember McCarthy answering any questions about his youth on his first throw in his first varsity game.
“It was a jam-packed stadium and he rolls out to his right. plants his right foot, throws across his body down the sideline between defenders. It was a laser beam,” he said. “You saw the velocity, the release. You could tell he was special. You don’t see, even from great high school quarterbacks, a ball thrown like that from a sophomore.”
Nazareth was already established itself as a local powerhouse before McCarthy came along, and he took that to another level. By October, he’d been recognized by the Bears as their local high school player of the week, his teammates crowding around him for a photo in the school cafeteria, him wearing a Boston College tank top, long before he’d committed to play at Michigan.
McCarthy had incredible numbers as a sophomore, completing 76% of his passes with 39 touchdowns and only four interceptions. After Nazareth won the state championship, a select group of players got to run across the field at a Bears game with the championship trophy, and McCarthy was also recognized on the field during a game as one of the area’s best high school stars.
“Being there, growing up there, I’m really thankful,” McCarthy said this week of his years at Nazareth. “Thankful for all the family friends down the block, thankful for all the schoolmates and teachers, everyone who helped shape me to who I am.”
McCarthy went 26-2 as a starter at Nazareth, opting to play his senior year at IMG Academy in Florida before a stellar career at Michigan. He was drafted in the first round in 2024 by the Vikings, but his rookie year was derailed by a season-ending knee injury in preseason.
A year later, he takes over a Vikings team that went 14-3 last year, throwing to one of the league’s biggest playmakers in receiver Justin Jefferson. Getting drafted by the Vikings meant he would have a game back in Chicago, but as a division rival, setting up a natural conflict because so many of his biggest fans are also Bears fans.
“It’s definitely a full-circle moment,” said Marcus Griffin, a linebacker and captain on the 2018 Nazareth team and now a high school defensive coordinator at age 24 at nearby Riverside Brookfield. “Him growing up here, him being a La Grange Park hero, now his first game ever in the NFL is at home. It’s full circle, not only for his family, for me and his teammates and anyone who’s ever coached him. We all get a chance to see him come home and playin in front of the home crowd.”
Griffin remembers the same play that Racki brought up as a moment where players on the sideline knew McCarthy would be someone special, even as a 15-year-old.
“At that point, we all looked around on the sideline and were just like, ‘We’ll be seeing him play football a lot longer after Friday night,'” he said. “I could never root against him. That brotherhood and that friendship is instilled too deeply for me to ever wish him any bad. However many times he plays against the Bears, every time, I’ll find myself with a Vikings hat on.”
J.J. McCarthy plays Marist High School during his days back at Nazareth. (Credit: Ed McGregor)
Monday Night Football is a return home, but McCarthy has waited a year to get into an NFL game. Any nostalgia will be trumped by a constant reminder in his head that this is his job now, and his heart now belongs to his new team.
“I feel like home is in Minnesota,” he said this week. “At the end of the day, it’s just a business trip. I’m going to go down there, execute some football plays and see what happens.”
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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