Talk about a squaring-the-circle type of moment.
A kid born and raised in the Greenfield section of Pittsburgh — right across the Monongahela River from Steelers headquarters — is back in town to lead the team he cheered for as a child.
This is the currently unfolding story of Mike McCarthy, head coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers. To fully understand who McCarthy is as a coach, you need to look out back behind the bar of a small neighborhood tavern in a Pittsburgh hollow called The Run.
McCarthy grew up in Greenfield, the working-class 15th Ward neighborhood where he roamed hilly streets, attended mass and played pickup ball with steel mill workers’ kids. As one lifelong Greenfield resident put it, “It was strictly blue-collar … steel mills and the smell of rotten eggs. Families were very close-knit and had great pride being from Greenfield.”
At the center of that world was a red brick building in Greenfield’s Four Mile Run at the bottom of a steep ravine in the shadows of the Swinburne and Greenfield bridges. It’s a humble building that’s stood since the 1800s and served as a hub of community for at least a century.
The wood-paneled pub with diner-style booths in the back was built as a house, then became a smoking bar, known for serving steelworkers coming off their shifts at the J&L mill. Over time, the building has gone through many owners and seen thousands of faces — including Coach McCarthy’s.
His father, Joe, owned the bar and gave his son the chores of wiping down counters and mopping floors before watching his beloved Steelers play Sunday afternoons. The younger McCarthy learned early about earning his keep.
The crowd was a shot-and-beer group unwinding from shifts at the mills, and the food was simple, hearty fare of working-class Pittsburgh — the kind of spread that fueled men who spent their days doing hard physical labor.
Even into the late 1980s, as Pittsburgh’s steel industry ran on fumes, one local woman who waitressed at Big Jim’s, the restaurant next door to McCarthy’s, remembers mill workers lining the bar, laying out quarters and dimes for post-shift beers, beneath the framed picture of baseball’s Forbes Field that still hangs on the wall.
For young Coach McCarthy, Steelers Sunday has always been a workday. Football Sunday mornings weren’t leisure time for the family — that’s when the family earned their daily bread. Only after attending mass and cleaning the bar was it time to watch the Steelers. That ritual — church, chores, football — forged a work ethic that makes him the coach he is.
McCarthy work ethic followed him from Fort Hays State, then to the NFL in Kansas City, Green Bay and Dallas. Working at the bar taught him that no job was beneath him, that the details matter. And every job was about working hard.
The rest was just the X’s and O’s of football.
When he wasn’t scrubbing floors or hauling cases of beer, McCarthy’s childhood food world was being shaped right next door at Big Jim’s. Hospitality workers will all tell you one of the best perks of being in the industry is swapping food with other establishments.
Big Jim’s has been serving Pittsburgh families great food at a great price since 1977. Jim Bochicchio opened the restaurant, offering massive portion sizes based on his mother’s recipes for Italian wedding soup, meatballs and spaghetti sauce. It’s the kind of cooking, as The Food Network put it, that makes you feel like “you’re at grandma’s house on a Sunday afternoon.”
The signature veal Parmesan sandwich is a monster portion that Guy Fieri himself deemed “ridiculous” when he featured the restaurant on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” The calzone packs protein punch with ham, salami, capicola, pepperoni and provolone.
When McCarthy wasn’t at the bar, the other great food influence his upbringing was his mother’s kitchen. His sister Kellie made clear who sets the agenda there, saying in an interview, “My mom is a great cook. She pretty much sets the menu.”
And so in January, when McCarthy was hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers as the 17th head coach in franchise history, it was a western Pennsylvania homecoming. The entire McCarthy family gathered for a celebratory dinner to toast this neighborhood kid becoming only the fourth person given the honor of coaching the Steelers since 1969.
At his introductory press conference, McCarthy said: “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Greenfield. My parents, my siblings and my family and the people … are why we’re sitting here today.”
Back in The Run, that century-old building in the old neighborhood broadcast its feelings. Two signs hang side by side: one proclaims “Big Jim’s ‘in the run,’” and the other — all black and gold — reads “Welcome Home Coach McCarthy!”
Big Jim’s is still open. If you want to taste the food that fueled McCarthy’s Pittsburgh childhood, the kitchen is still firing. The welcome mat is still out.
Some coaches learn their craft in film rooms. Mike McCarthy’s bona fides were built in a dive bar in a Pittsburgh hollow, hauling cases of beer and mopping floors. From this hardscrabble upbringing teaching him the value of hard work and preparation came national fame, success and, ultimately, it’s exactly what brought this Pittsburgh native son back home.
Dining and Cooking