Mike McCarthy grew up in the Greenfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He was born and raised in Pittsburgh and often describes himself as a “Pittsburgh guy,” specifically from the working-class Greenfield area just outside downtown. Biographical profiles and kids’ fact pages likewise note that he grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a blue-collar family where his father was a firefighter, police officer, and bar owner, and his Sundays often involved helping clean the family bar before church.