To call Phil McCarthy an elite athlete would be an understatement. An All-American in lacrosse, and the all-time leading scorer in hockey and lacrosse at Shenendehowa High School, Phil went on to star in both hockey and lacrosse at Hobart College in the late 80s and early 90s.
“Athletics was always a huge part of my life. I would drop one bag at the end of a season, pick up the next bag and change locker rooms. I was always on.”
Sports forged a foundation of leadership and mental toughness that defined Phil’s formative years. But what happens when everything you have ever known is taken from you?
Phil McCarthy would need every bit of that mental toughness for the challenges he had to face. And he soon discovered that the approach he learned from a life immersed in sports would not only help him recover, but help him thrive in his life beyond the athletic fields.
The Early Years
Phil McCarthy grew up the middle child of three boys in Clifton Park, a small New York town just north of Albany. And like just about every boy in Clifton Park, the McCarthy Brothers (Jon, Phil and Mike) all played hockey from the time they could crawl.
Phil was especially gifted. Small, quick, and tenacious, he had the perfect mentality for hockey. And Jim Salfi , then head coach of the legendary Rensselear Polytechnic Institute (RPI) hockey program, and Jerry Kemp, who would later Coach Phil in high school, worked with Phil to put an even finer point on his skills. It was all hockey. All the time.
But when Phil was in 5th grade, his father was transferred to Syracuse, where the McCarthy Family would remain for two years. Syracuse was only 140 miles west, but it was a world apart.
“Every backyard had a lacrosse goal. You couldn’t walk down the street without seeing groups of kids playing lacrosse.”
Phil had no choice but to pick up the sport. And he loved it!
Phil eventually moved back to Clifton Park, but his love for the sport of lacrosse would always remain.
An Athlete in the Making
Phil went on to attend Shenendehowa High School, where he was a three-sport athlete (hockey, golf, lacrosse) and a three-sport captain. He set concrete, lofty goals that would push his individual talents. He wanted to be the all-time points scorer in hockey and lacrosse. He wanted to be an All-American in lacrosse. But before he could do any of that, he wanted to make the Empire State All-Star team in hockey.
“The Empire State tryouts were important for Upstate New York kids and traditionally only Juniors made the team. That was my focus.”
He tried out his sophomore year and for the first time in his life, he was cut from a team.
“That really hurt. I sulked for a bit. But then I sat and wrote a long letter to myself promising I would make the team the next year. That letter sealed my commitment to my goals.”
The next year, Phil made the team and opened the letter with a giant smile. Of course, he couldn’t play in it (he had to decide between playing lacrosse or hockey in the Empire State Games and lacrosse won out) but the feeling of accomplishment motivated him even more. And set him on a path to accomplish all his long-term athletic goals.
He did in fact become a high school lacrosse All-American. He did in fact break the all-time points record in hockey and lacrosse at Shenendehoha (several of his records still stand today) and was the first player in school history to play in the prestigious North-South lacrosse all-star team. His athletic future was brighter than ever.
All Roads Lead to Hobart
Phil McCarthy was destined to play either lacrosse or hockey in college.
“Notre Dame showed some interest for lacrosse, but my dad went to Boston College, so no way he was letting that happen!”
Through Jerry Kemp, his high school hockey coach, Phil had a conversation with Mike Addesa, the hockey coach of RPI, who had won a national championship with Adam Oates a few years earlier.
“Coach Addesa loved my game but felt I wasn’t big enough. But he introduced me to Coach Greer at Hobart.”
Coincidentally, that same week, George LeVeille, the father of Albany lacrosse, introduced Phil to Coach Dave Urick, the legendary lacrosse coach at Hobart.
Hobart had just beaten Syracuse in lacrosse and they were coming off seven (soon to eight!) straight national championships. Phil and Coach Urick hit it off immediately.
“All roads were leading to Hobart. It was then I realized, I didn’t have to choose between the sports.”
Phil McCarthy had not taken a season off in sports since he was 5 years old. And that trend would continue through his college years.
Glory Days
Hobart Lacrosse was not like high school. The pyramid got a little pointier.
“If you were an All-American, you could get in line with the rest of them. It was the most competitive environment I had ever experienced.”
Phil McCarthy had come to Hobart to play Varsity Lacrosse. And his Freshman year, he was cut from the team. Another devastating blow.
“I remember how disappointed I was in myself. I was embarrassed and I needed a moment. I took a long walk around the lake and allowed myself to cry. Then I made a decision.”
What did he do? He wrote another letter to himself. He spelled out his goals for himself and his future teammates. He would never be cut again.
“The next year I realized I had a choice. Either raise myself to that high level or ask that level to come down. In this environment, you quickly learned what the expectation was.”
McCarthy raised his level. He went on make the team his sophomore year and was a significant contributor for the remainder of his college career.
But none of that would have been possible without the lessons he learned from Coach Dave Urick.
“Coach Urick had such a calm and confident demeanor. He created a mindset for each athlete to own their own effort and give everything they had to the team.”
McCarthy remembers heading into one particularly big game against Duke and feeling extra nervous. Coach Urick noticed he was taking a little longer to get off the bus.
“Hey Phil, you know I judge a good road trip? By the number of meals we’re going to have – and this is going to be a good one”, Coach Urick mused as he rubbed his stomach.
Phil smiled and Coach Urick winked.
Then Coach Urick’s eyes narrowed. “But first we got work to do. LET’S GO!”
Phil was ready to run through a brick wall!
But more than anything, Coach Urick taught him about accountability.
He demanded that the players pay attention in practice. He demanded that they take pride in the little things. And if a player got beat in a game, they understood they would be pulled.
“Coach gave us everything we needed to be successful. If we failed to perform, we knew that was on us. If we had a disagreement about playing time, we had a disagreement with ourselves. He taught us to take ownership of our success”
But accountability and playing time were never an issue for McCarthy in hockey. From the time he stepped on the ice, he was a star. While the hockey team did not experience the same unbridled success as the lacrosse team, they were competitive and committed to building a similar tradition of excellence and cohesiveness.
“I had to develop a healthy relationship between personal goals and team goals. It is okay to have both.”
By the time Phil graduated, he did, in fact, have a healthy dose of both.
3 lacrosse national championships.
MVP and captain of the hockey team.
All-time Hobart points leader in hockey.
And every year one senior athlete is honored with the Bill Stiles Award for leadership, dedication and character. Phil McCarthy took home the Award in 1991.
It was a huge honor for Phil. The culmination of all the sacrifices he had made along the way. But what does he cherish most about his time at Hobart?
Walking off the field in his last lacrosse game as a champion.
“It wasn’t about the trophy. It was about not letting my teammates, my coach, or myself down. Giving that time and effort was all for them. And because we could celebrate together, it made it all worthwhile”.
Phil McCarthy accomplished everything he set out to do as a hockey player and a lacrosse player at Hobart College.
Little did he know the challenges that lay ahead.
A Brutal Setback
Everything about Phil’s life had centered around athletics. When he graduated, he needed to find a new direction.
“I’m the type of person who can’t turn it off. I needed to replace athletics with something. Coaching was the next best thing.”
McCarthy had the opportunity to earn a 1-year MBA at Clarkson University and was offered a graduate assistant position on the lacrosse team. It was the dream scenario and a perfect transition to the real world.
Then came April 13th, 1992.
McCarthy went to bed that night after a long practice, feeling a little more tired than usual. He awoke in the middle of the night in excruciating pain and completely paralyzed on his left side. At the age of 23, and in peak physical condition, Phil McCarthy had suffered a major brain aneurism.
Fortunately, he was rushed to the hospital just in time. He was alive. But he was paralyzed and had lost all the physical tools that had sustained him his entire life.
Suddenly, Phil McCarthy felt all alone. Negative thoughts ran through his head and his future seemed bleak.
Who will hire me?
Who will marry me?
Without sports, how will I learn and grow?
If I’m not an athlete, who am I?
Instead of running, skating, shooting and scoring, he was being asked to perform simple tasks such as separating the blue triangle from the red circle and learning how to mobilize in a wheel chair.
“I felt as though all the tools that had helped me in the past were gone. It got dark very quickly.”
The early days of his recovery were incredibly challenging. And the frustration mounted. But professionals in his recovery center would not let him give up.
“They taught me that my frustration was really just fear showing up in the wrong emotion. I needed to find my starting point and build from there.”
But how could he find his starting point? How could he start over? It turns out, he didn’t have to. Phil McCarthy had spent his entire life building an approach to success. It was just a matter of applying all the lessons he learned from his life in athletics.
An Athletic Approach to Recovery
After a few weeks, Phil was put in with other patients who had suffered similar setbacks. That is when everything clicked.
“I realized that these were my new teammates. And if I gave everything I had, maybe I could change their story.”
Phil had only lost his physical tools. But that wasn’t what defined him. He had developed an incredible approach to life through years of athletic rigor. He simply needed to apply that approach to his recovery.
Just as giving everything he had for his coaches and teammates had helped him win multiple championships, he now needed to give that same level of commitment to his doctors and fellow patients.
Winning is not about the trophy. It’s about giving everything we have to our teammates. And fighting for other people will raise our own level of competition in the process.
Phil also needed to set concrete goals for his recovery. Just as he had twice written letters to himself, he needed to tap into that same process for his recovery. It would take hard work, but he set a goal of walking across the stage on his own to receive his MBA.
We can’t achieve our goals unless we write them down. And the loftier, the better!
Phil also needed to silence his inner critic. Just as Coach Urick had taught him about accountability, he had no one else to blame for his situation. He was dealt a tough hand but he was not a victim. He had all the tools he needed to be successful. It was just a matter of executing.
We need to take accountability for our actions and our success. We control our destiny.
Finally, in order to successfully recover, Phil had to believe he could win the battle. Just as Hobart had created a culture of “expecting to win”, he now had to adapt that same mindset.
Of course he could come out on top. He had lead so many others before, now he just needed to lead himself.
In order to win, we have to believe we can win.
Now it was clear. Phil had an approach to help him recover. Phil had an approach to help him with life.
Do it for your teammates and you will help yourself in the process.
Set goals and write them down.
Take accountability for your actions and control your destiny.
Believe you can win.
Phil McCarthy was an elite athlete. But losing his physical tools did not change the person. It was time to go to work!
The road to recovery was not easy. The struggle was real. But armed with his methodical approach, Phil McCarthy walked across the stage on his own power and received his MBA. Was there ever a doubt?
An Athletic Approach to Life
As he continued to battle with his physical challenges, Phil ended up securing a coaching and teaching position at The Berkshire School in New England. His younger brother Mike was there, and it was the perfect atmosphere to bond with his brother, give to others, and aid his recovery.
After a year, Phil was strong enough to pursue his dream of working on Wall Street. The Headmaster at Berkshire connected him with Peter Kellogg, who ran a powerful trading firm in Manhattan. Phil jumped at the opportunity.
On the first interview, the managing director who interviewed Phil looked at his resume and saw a lot of athletic accomplishments but not a lot of “real world” experience. A frown turned to a scoff.
“You know, we don’t have a lacrosse team here at our firm.”
Phil didn’t waste a second.
“Let me ask you a few questions. Do you have a team? Do you have someone to compete against? Do you want to win? Do you have individual and team goals? Are your team members accountable to each other?”
Phil paused as the rhetorical questions hung in the air.
You may not value cradling and shooting, but I guarantee you will value my approach to the business!”
Phil was hired the next day.
The same approach born out of struggle and sacrifice continued to both aid his recovery and super-charge his career.
A few years later, Phil was itching to get back to his lacrosse roots. He moved back to Albany and interned with his old high school hockey coach, Jerry Kemp,who had a successful hockey equipment store in the area.
Phil learned so much about the business and it stoked his passion for entrepreneurship. Armed with his new confidence, he moved out to Denver, Colorado to open up his own lacrosse equipment store.
Once out there, he embraced the thrill of his new home town. And one fateful night, he met a beautiful young woman named Sarah. Despite his noticeable limp, they immediately connected. And things never slowed down from there.
Not long after, Sarah accepted Phil’s proposal of marriage. Years later, Phil would ask Sarah why she fell for a guy who had so much trouble walking and staying balanced.
“You didn’t see yourself as someone with a limp. So neither did I!”
And there you have it. We all have struggles and challenges and setbacks. But it’s all about how we react. It’s all about the approach we take to overcome our own setbacks. And Phil McCarthy has given us a blueprint for success that we can all apply to our own lives.
Life is Good!
Phil McCarthy built up his lacrosse business into a majorly successful franchise with seven locations across the country. He recently sold the business and now works for 3d Lacrosse in Denver, teaching and evangelizing the sport he loves.
His physical recovery is complete and he is walking and running without aid. Most importantly, he has the best teammates in the business: his wife Sarah, his daughter Amelia and his two sons Finn and Rhys. Of course, he coaches all of his children.
In addition, Phil McCarthy now operates his own blog espousing the lessons of sports and the positive impact it can have in our own lives (Check it out here for additional insight and inspiration Athlete2Lifelite ).
Phil McCarthy reached the pinnacle of athletic achievement only to be physically devastated in his prime. But he painstakingly applied the tools he had learned from athletics to accelerate his own recovery. And that approach proved to be a winning formula for success in his own life.
And, despite our own struggles and setbacks and disappointments, we can all apply that formula for success in our own lives.
Never give up on your dreams and your goals. Stay resilient. Life is good!
Until next week, keep smiling!