LA GRANGE PARK, Ill. — The father of the Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback of the future slides over, swipes at his phone and leans over to offer up a picture.

“How great is this?” Jim McCarthy asks.

The image shows a kid with shaggy blond hair wearing an oversized Iowa State football jersey. He might have been 85 pounds soaking wet. Frankly, J.J. looks like a pipsqueak.

“Wild, right?”

What’s actually wild is how normal this all feels. The family’s fluffy dogs, Hubert and Blue, are fenced off in the kitchen and barking. J.J.’s mother, Megan, a project manager for a staffing firm, is downstairs taking work calls on her laptop. It’s a mid-July morning about 15 miles from downtown Chicago. NFL training camps are approaching. And if it weren’t for Jim’s gray hoodie with tiny purple and gold print, you’d have no idea a member of this household played high school football, much less was the Vikings’ first-round pick.

There are no framed jerseys adorning the walls. No football photos lining the entryway. There is a kitchen table and a living room and this cluttered screened-in deck. And that’s where Jim, who is in sales for a waste management company, is slouching comfortably like he’s drinking beers with his buddies.

He’s replaying the night that led to the Iowa State picture when the phone buzzes with a Twitter notification:

Sources: Minnesota Vikings No. 10 overall pick J.J. McCarthy is signing a four-year, fully-guaranteed contract worth $21.85 million that includes a $12.71 million signing bonus and a fifth-year team option. pic.twitter.com/Cc9CE8A4nj

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 19, 2024

I show Jim my phone.

“What’s this?” He asks, leaning in to take a look. “Oh! OK.”

“Did you know this was happening?”

“Not at all. Great!”

“You … didn’t … even … know?”

“Had zero idea!”

A few minutes later, Megan slides open the door to the screened-in deck and says she’s going to run some errands.

“Did you see J signed?” Jim asks.

“Huh?” Megan replies.

“J signed his contract,” Jim says.

“Seriously?” Megan asks. “He doesn’t give us a heads up on anything!”

Jim laughs, then shrugs and says: “That’s how we are.”

The family did not fly to Minnesota for J.J.’s introductory news conference. Jim has yet to meet Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell. When asked what he thinks about J.J. potentially sitting behind veteran Sam Darnold to start the season, the father talks like his son works in finance.

“If you want a promotion in life, do something to earn it,” Jim says. “It’s a career. At the end of the day, it’s a job where you have to perform in order to get promotions. So guess what? Go f—ing perform, or find another job.”

All of this might sound like the McCarthy parents are a tad removed from their son’s success. But it’s actually the opposite. As a family, they decided a long time ago that space and normalcy would allow their kid to be … well, a kid.

Thanks for having me @IowaStateFB @ISUMattCampbell @JimHofher @CoachGolesh @CoachDHoodjer @CoachJGordo @EDGYTIM @AlexHalsted @NxtLevelAtx pic.twitter.com/VR7A6YgMCq

— J.J. McCarthy (@jjmccarthy09) March 25, 2018

J.J. McCarthy’s first private quarterbacks coach stands up from his seat atop some metal bleachers to mimic a throw.

“So, he moves like this,” Greg Holcomb says, reenacting a rollout to the left.

He flips his hips and simulates a sidearm sling.

“And we were, like, ‘What?!’” Holcomb says incredulously. “That was right here. When he was still so young.”

“Right here” is a ho-hum turf field at Doerhoefer Park about 10 miles from the McCarthys’ home. This is where, after one of their first sessions, with the sun setting, and Megan waiting at the car, Holcomb told J.J.: “Dude, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a seventh-grader throw the football as smoothly and naturally and effortlessly as you.”

Time blurred from there. Jim took J.J. to a camp at North Central College in Naperville, Ill.; J.J. threw; Iowa State coaches approached J.J.; Jim texted Holcomb what was happening; Holcomb replied excitedly; the Iowa State coaches invited J.J. to a camp; Holcomb told Jim that they’d offer him; Cyclones head coach Matt Campbell watched J.J. throw the next week, then offered him; J.J. called Holcomb to tell him; and Holcomb responded: “You got an offer didn’t you; I f—ing knew it.” That’s when they took the picture that Jim still has.

The offer, and an ensuing growth spurt, pushed J.J.’s recruitment into hyperdrive. Holcomb’s business boomed because local parents knew he was J.J.’s coach. While Holcomb managed the influx of trainees, he wondered how J.J. was navigating the notoriety. One weekend, Urban Meyer was walking around Ohio Stadium with his arm around J.J. to sell him on Ohio State. The next, Joe Burrow was calling to pitch J.J. on LSU. Social media feeds were filled with support and hatred from so many different fan bases. Mailboxes filled with hand-written letters. A phone call from a coach here, a text to respond to there.

All at once, J.J. was trying to win games for Nazareth Academy on Friday nights, impress college coaches on Saturdays, do homework on Sundays and be a kid during the week. Jim, Megan, J.J.’s sisters, Caitlin and Morgan, and his now fiancée, Katya Kuropas, tried to help him manage it. Once new Ohio State coach Ryan Day shocked the family during an in-person meeting when he said the school did not have the offer that Meyer once promised, Megan urged J.J. to visit Michigan. Though J.J.’s appreciation for Iowa State’s initial belief remained — Jim even says, “We still love Matt Campbell” — there was something about Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh’s belief in the young quarterback that made J.J. fall in love.

It was there, during J.J.’s freshman season in Ann Arbor, that J.J. decided he needed his parents not in a management role but as support.

“I just want you guys,” he told his parents then, “to be Mom and Dad.”

Jim McCarthy is still on the screened-in deck in the backyard and he’s showing different pictures.

He finds a photo of what J.J. calls his “GOAT book,” a journal where J.J. jots down inspirational messages.

“Look at this: Brady, the mindset of a champion … Michael Jordan’s 10 rules of success … Kobe Bryant … This was all in high school. This is how he thinks … Muhammad Ali.”

He scrolls again through the photos on his phone.

“Here’s something a lot of people don’t know about him …”

When J.J. was still just a junior in high school, Megan installed a massive whiteboard in his room. Each week, he filled it with dry-erase marker ink, breaking down his opponents. He jotted down the defense’s primary coverages. He singled out defenders he could attack.

Jim showed the image of J.J.’s whiteboard ahead of the 2019 state championship game against Mount Carmel. Notes were scribbled all over the board: On trips, that corner takes the receiver vertical … Easily their worst cover corner … Call McDaniels.

“That was (a reminder) for him to call Ben McDaniels (the former quarterbacks coach at Michigan), who recruited him,” Jim says.

“So what happened in that game? We lost,” Jim says. “It was hailing sideways. All right, so he comes home and obviously, he’s pissed. The next morning, he wakes up and goes, ‘I’ve got to go for a run.’ It’s 6 a.m. He leaves. I go into his room. The whole whiteboard has changed.”

Jim swipes the phone and shows an image straight out of “A Beautiful Mind.” An NFL logo is drawn beautifully in the middle of the whiteboard. At the top, in bold, is the score of the game: 37-13. There are phrases and quotes everywhere.

This s— is not easy … What are you willing to do? … Dreams would not be dreams if they were easy … Overrated … Don’t bounce around in the pocket … Two hands on the ball … How bad do you want it?

Look what we found on the street posts on 31st Street in LGP. @jjmccarthy09 pic.twitter.com/Jf9BdCKi8p

— Nazareth Academy Football (@FootballNaz) April 1, 2024

The next photo in Jim’s phone is another telling image. Written in scraggly handwriting on a sheet of loose-leaf paper is the message: One goal: Be the greatest f—ing quarterback to ever come through here. 

J.J. taped that on the wall of his freshman dorm room in Ann Arbor. As for Tom Brady?

“We always talked, like, if your friends aren’t laughing at your goals, you never set them high enough,” Jim says.

J.J. went on to become one of the most accomplished Michigan quarterbacks ever. He beat Day’s Ohio State team three times, putting away his usual eye black so Day could see him directly. As Michigan tore its way toward a national championship, Jim and Megan mostly kept out of the spotlight. The only responsibility Jim assumed — at J.J.’s directive — was dropping off checks at local children’s hospitals in the city of each team Michigan played.

This all sounds so advanced, so beyond his years — almost a professional mindset at such an early age. How do parents instill in a child that type of big-picture view? What parenting strategies inspire this type of awareness? What is it like to see a child so committed to achieving his goals?

In a roundabout way, I asked this of Jim.

“His life has been on fast-forward,” Jim says, “and he’s managed it well. But he’s still a young kid. I want him to make mistakes. There’s still so much for him to learn. He’s still a 21-year-old kid.”

Good times as Megan & Jim McCarthy share the morning with ⁦@tomhouse⁩. pic.twitter.com/0k1W1Ibjj2

— Todd J. Anson (@TJA4Michigan) December 31, 2022

Years ago, before the fame came, Holcomb asked J.J. to babysit his son Sam.

J.J. jumped at the opportunity. He showed up with Katya, and together they shouldered the responsibility. J.J.’s best work? Whipping up some grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Sam thought they were the best he’d ever had,” Holcomb says, “just because J.J. made them.”

Had a blast watching Sammy Holcomb and the Tiny Mite Patriots DOMINATE today 49-0! @NxtLevelAtx @QBCoachHolc pic.twitter.com/oumGSz5a8c

— J.J. McCarthy (@jjmccarthy09) October 28, 2018

Years later, Sam is now in seventh grade. And, funnily enough, not only does he play quarterback, but he is considered the best in the country at his age.

Michigan became the first school to offer him about a month ago. Jim informed J.J. of the news, and J.J. immediately sent Sam a direct message.

Holcomb has a screenshot of it.

“Congrats, fam,” Holcomb says, reading J.J.’s words aloud. “Well deserved because of all the work that you already put in. But I’m here to tell you that you’re not even getting started yet and haven’t even scratched the surface of your potential. I’ll love you for life, but please, if you can promise me one thing, continue to work your balls off until you hang the cleats up. Let me know if you ever need anything.

“Just the beginning.”

Buried in that last phrase is a message for Holcomb, too. It’s the beginning of a well-trodden parenting arc.

Jim is one of the few who can relate to Holcomb’s situation, so Holcomb has begun to ask for advice. The overall theme in Jim’s responses? Be a dad, not an overbearing manager or coach. And if the kid loves this — like, really loves it — there’s no telling what he might be able to accomplish.

(Top photo: Nick Wosika / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

PARIS — From a small, fluorescent lit gym just north of Paris, Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve was asked about her team’s biggest advantage in the Olympics.

Depth, she paused. No, size.

“1A, 1B,” she decided.

Reeve isn’t wrong. With three players taller than 6-4 and a bevy of guards in the 6-foot range, Team USA will have a height and length advantage, one through five, on nearly every opponent that takes the floor during these Olympic Games. And when it comes to depth, though other countries have continued to build talented rosters over the years, which might be able to compete well for an extended time with the States’ starting five, the real gut punch for opponents comes when Reeve rolls out her backups and rotational players, for whom no opponents’ six through 10 can hold pace. It must feel something like, Oh, you thought those five WNBA All-Stars were tough to guard? Well, how about you try five more? And then, for good measure, another two?

There’s also the fact the Americans have the two best players in the world, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, the most experienced Olympian, Diana Taurasi, and four members of the two-time defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces (including Wilson).

So, yes, per usual, Team USA has more than a few advantages in these Olympic Games even before mentioning the legacy this team carries into these games.

Because there’s no dynasty as dominant in sports now as the U.S. women in international basketball. For seven consecutive Olympics, the women have brought home the gold, building the expectation (and, assumption) with each consecutive win.

Team USA hasn’t lost a single Olympic game (including pool play) since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. The closest game in Olympic play since those 1996 Games — the start of the gold medal streak — was a 4-point win over Russia in 2004, but those close games are rare. Just three times in the last seven Olympics have opponents kept their losses to single digits.

So, to say that this Team USA women’s basketball team doesn’t know anything except Olympic gold medals isn’t just a figure of speech. For the majority of this roster, it’s factually true. Just three players on the roster were alive the last time a Team USA women’s team lost an Olympic game — Aug. 5, 1992 (and, Alyssa Thomas was barely 4 months old at the time).

And yet, with all those advantages — both historically and in this specific moment — Reeve is hyperaware of the drawbacks that come with a country this full of women’s basketball talent.

Because of the depth Team USA has in its player pool, and not just with the final 12 players who made the Olympic roster, the personnel rotates more significantly throughout the four-year cycles between Olympics than in other countries. When the team’s roster was announced in June, the full 12 had never actually been in a camp together before. And when they took the floor in the All-Star Game earlier this month, the 12 had only had two practices with the full complement of players. That kind of truncated prep time affects chemistry (which was quite clear during their loss to the WNBA All-Stars).

But Reeve knew that would be one of the hardest challenges of this team. In her first on-floor appearance as Team USA’s coach in 2022, Reeve addressed the obvious with her team. They would play teams who knew one another better, who had played together more, who had practiced together more, but they could never use that as an excuse for their not finding a way to play well together.

“Talent is not going to be the reason why we win,” Reeve said. “It’s going to be the chemistry of our talent. And we have to work hard at that and focus on that.”

Between the All-Star Game and Team USA’s friendly against Germany last week, the group made strides. Defensively (Reeve’s calling card), the group looked more together. Reeve, who also coaches the Minnesota Lynx, leaned on her WNBA experience from this season, when the Lynx, returning just five players, managed to jell well enough during the league’s two-week preseason to put together one of the most impressive first halves to the WNBA season with a win in the league-wide Commissioner’s Cup in June.

Team USA knows that in its own pool — Japan, Belgium and Germany — the players on those teams have gotten more reps together as teams, not just in this last Olympic cycle but also with some cores playing together for many, many years. But with the talent, depth and every other advantage Team USA has going its way, the team hopes to use every minute on the floor together to accelerate its jelling and allow its advantages to overshadow whatever drawbacks might exist from its lack of time together.

Because 13 days from Team USA’s opener against Japan on Monday, they plan to be on the podium with the program’s eighth consecutive gold medal, holding up the expectation that the seven teams ahead of them made perfectly clear.

Reeve has made sure this group tries to separate the legacy of Team USA’s 55 consecutive Olympic wins from what this group hopes to do over the next two weeks, but make no mistake about it: Just as this program has over the last three decades, the goal and the expectation is one and the same. It’s gold, and nothing less. Big wins, and nothing less. It’s the Team USA way, and nothing less.

(Top illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Juan Ocampo / NBAE / Getty Images; Ryan Stetz / NBAE / Getty Images)

Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s installment tests your knowledge of novels, poems and memoirs by writers connected to the Harlem Renaissance, a creative movement by Black authors, artists and musicians that crystallized into a cultural force a century ago. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books and other information if you’d like to do some further reading.

3 of 5