LA GRANGE PARK, Ill. — The football field at Nazareth Academy is tucked away in a charming neighborhood on the outskirts of Chicago’s first-ring suburbs.
An undated photo of Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy with longtime quarterback coach Greg Holcolmb as a high schooler at Nazareth Academy in La Grange, Ill. (Courtesy of Greg Holcomb)
Its residential location makes it easily accessible by bike.
That’s an important detail Nazareth Academy head coach Tim Racki made sure to point out on a picturesque afternoon in late August as his players were busy warming up in the distance.
In the midst of getting Nazareth Academy prepared for its opener against Kankakee, Racki gave himself permission to take a trip down memory lane for a few minutes, reminiscing about how a young J.J. McCarthy used to show up to practice before he could even palm the football.
After initially asking his parents, Jim and Megan, to drop him off, McCarthy soon took it upon himself to get there. He’d set his alarm, hop on his bike, and pedal the couple of miles from his childhood home to be close to the sport he loved.
“I thought he’d show up maybe once or twice,” Racki said while standing on the turf at Valenta Stadium, where McCarthy later reached legendary status when he attended Nazareth Academy. “That kid was here every single week at 6 a.m.”
It’s appropriate, then, that more than a decade later, McCarthy will make his NFL debut roughly 30 minutes away when the Vikings play the Chicago Bears on Monday night at Soldier Field. It will be the culmination of a journey for McCarthy that began when he was about 10 years old while growing up in La Grange Park, Ill.
“I would say fifth grade is really when I started editing my life to get to this point,” McCarthy said last year after the Vikings selected him with the No. 10 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. “I’ve always been striving to be a better version of myself.”
Whether he was riding his bike to practice during elementary school, working out in middle school or studying film like a professional in high school, McCarthy has long dedicated himself to doing everything in his power to reach football’s highest level.
“He was driven to do this from a very, very early age,” Racki said. “He had a whiteboard in his bedroom as a teenager. He drew the NFL emblem on it. That’s why when people ask me if I’m surprised, I tell them I’m not.”
An undated photo of Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy rolling out to pass as a high schooler at Nazareth Academy in La Grange, Ill. (Courtesy of Tim Racki)
As he got more and more serious about his goals, McCarthy started training with longtime quarterback coach Greg Holcomb at Doerhoefer Park in suburban Downers Grove. The first throwing session came when McCarthy was about 12 years old, and it only took a few seconds for Holcomb to realize he could be special.
“It was something else,” Holcomb said while sipping on an iced pumpkin spice latte in a Starbucks less than a mile from where they used to train. “I had never seen a kid throw a football the way that he did.”
After about a year of weekly training with Holcomb, McCarthy attended a football camp at North Central College in Naperville, Ill. There, he caught the attention of some assistant coaches from Iowa State, who invited him to their football camp so head coach Matt Campbell could watch him in person.
“I got a text from Jim telling me what was going on,” Holcomb said. “I was like, ‘You know, if he throws well there’s a good chance he’ll get a scholarship offer, right?’ He was like, ‘C’mon. He hasn’t even played a snap at the high school level.’ I was like, ‘I know. He’s that good. Just trust me.’ ”
Sure enough, after throwing in front of Campbell the next week, McCarthy garnered his first scholarship offer.
“He had all this attention before he even came to us,” Racki said. “I knew I had to protect him.”
It helped that McCarthy also had a support system that helped keep him grounded, including parents Jim and Megan, his sisters Caitlin and Morgan, and his childhood sweetheart turned fiancée Katya Kuropas.
After learning the ropes at Nazareth Academy as a freshman, McCarthy took center stage as a sophomore, stepping in as the starting quarterback on a team with state championship aspirations. The bleachers at Valenta Stadium were completely full for his first start; so was every inch of the fence line surrounding the field.
“It’s never been so crowded,” Racki said. “The first play we ran the ball, and the second play we let him rip it.”
As he recalled the specific play, Racki started to reenact it, rolling to his right and planting his back foot into the ground.
“He throws a laser about 35 yards between a pair of defenders right into the receiver’s hands,” Racki said. “The headsets went silent for a few seconds and I said, ‘Alright I think he’s ready for it.’ ”
It wasn’t long before McCarthy became something of a local celebrity at home games.
“He would literally have kids waiting from the 50-yard line or beyond into the end zone,” Racki said. “I told him that I could get him out of there if he wanted. He told me he was going to sign for every kid that was waiting. I patted his head like, ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ ”
The hype surrounding McCarthy also made him a target for trash talk at road games.
“These student sections were absolutely brutal trying to get under his skin,” Racki said. “We would finish up and then all of sudden, these kids were his biggest fans, wanting to take selfies with him. I was like, ‘You heard what they were chanting right?’ He was like, ‘It’s all good.’ ”
As his star continued to rise, McCarthy cemented his legendary status as a sophomore by leading Nazareth Academy to a state championship over St. Charles North, dominating despite playing through a broken thumb in his throwing hand.
He nearly led a repeat as junior before coming up short when Nazareth Academy lost the state championship to Mount Carmel. After struggling in poor weather conditions, McCarthy stayed up all night, covering the whiteboard in his bedroom with motivational quotes.
The pandemic struck a few months later, shutting down sports in the area, and ultimately forcing McCarthy to make the difficult decision to leave home as a senior and attend IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.
“He only went there because we weren’t going to have football here,” Holcomb said. “He’s the most loyal kid, and his friends are such a core knit of his fabric. There’s no way he would’ve left them, not unless he had to do it.”
Never mind that McCarthy finished up high school IMG Academy, then went to college at the University of Michigan. He’s still revered in his hometown because of the way he made people feel when he was there.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) is unsuited during warmups before the start of a NFL preseason football game against the New England Patriots at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
“You still hear people talk about him all the time,” Nazareth Academy offensive coordinator Casey Moran said. “There are kids who looked up to him when they were younger walking the hallways now.”
Some of those kids include Nazareth Academy football players with vivid memories of interacting with McCarthy.
“He helped coach the youth football camp,” senior quarterback Eddie Austin said. “He was standing at the 50-yard line and took a couple of steps and hit the crossbar twice in a row. The ball came off his hand so fast. I was so amazed by that when I was a kid.”
As talented as McCarthy was on the field, he also had a way of making everybody feel important off the field.
“He was the coolest guy ever,” senior receiver Nick Racki said. “I would run over the huddle after the game and pretend like I was doing a fake interview and he would give genuine answers and treat it like it was a real interview.”
Those anecdotes make it easy to see why La Grange Park still proudly claims McCarthy any chance it gets. That pride was on display in the lead up to the 2024 NFL Draft as banners of McCarthy lined light poles of his hometown.
A recent drive down East 31st Street in La Grange Park reveals a rather small community, featuring a hardware store, a couple of auto repair shops and a cafe, among a handful of other businesses.
A picture of East 31st Street in La Grange Park, Ill. on Aug. 23, 2025. This is where Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy grew up. (Dane Mizutani/Pioneer Press)
Not too far away from all of that sits Hop District Brewing, whose owner, Jim Koblish, is neighbors with the McCarthys. He remembers regularly seeing a father and son tossing the football around at dusk.
“You wouldn’t have thought that kid would go on to play in the NFL,” Koblish said. “It’s pretty cool he’s from here.”
That same sentiment was shared by Racki as he tried to sum up how much McCarthy still means to his hometown.
“We love him,” Racki said. “He’s left quite a legacy here.”
That was evident last year shortly after Nazareth Academy captured its latest state championship. As he celebrated with his players during the parade, Racki looked out at the crowd and spotted a bunch of kids wearing No. 9 jerseys.
Maybe those kids will soon be riding their bikes to practice like the hometown hero before them.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) directs the offense in the first quarter of a NFL preseason football game against the Houston Texans at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
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