Former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy might be the most boring head football coach in NFL history. If you go back and follow him on the sidelines, he's typically stone-faced, peering over his laminated play sheet, and watching Aaron Rodgers perform miracle acts to help keep his job alive. Well, that magic ran out, and McCarthy was fired with four games left in the 2018 NFL season.
The 55-year-old Pittsburgh native is still out of work, and apparently, he's strayed a bit too far away from his normally casual demeanor. After watching his stepson's high school basketball game, McCarthy ran down from the bleachers and gave an earful to the game's officiating crew. And of course, there's video evidence.
The security footage obtained by FOX 11 News in Pulaski, Wisconsin shows officials being escorted off the floor after Notre Dame Academy — McCarthy's stepson's team — lost their regional playoff game, 67-66, to Pulaski High School on Tuesday night. That's when a man, identified by multiple witnesses as McCarthy, began to chase them out of the gym.
"Some things were said, some language was used that we don't want in our gym, unsportsmanlike language," Pulaski High School Athletic Director Janel Batten said.
The officiating crew filed a formal complaint against McCarthy with the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) following the incident.
"Without these great officials, we can't have great sports, right? So that is important, so we've taken some measures in our conference, specifically at our school, we do things maybe that are a little different. We always escort these people to the court or to our stadium."
— Pulaski AD Janel Batten, via FOX 11
Batten also added that their protocol of escorting officials on and off the floor likely prevented McCarthy's verbal tirade from potentially escalating even further.
During his 12-plus seasons coaching the Packers, McCarthy won 125 games, six NFC North division titles, reached the playoffs nine times and won Super Bowl XLV over his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers. During that time, McCarthy rarely was in trouble for berating officials and was never fined by the NFL for off-the-cuff tirades like the one he spat out following a high school basketball game.
Maybe a little spice is exactly what McCarthy needs to get back into the NFL. Then again, doing it at a high school basketball game isn't exactly the best look for a normally mild-mannered offensive guru.
