Dan McCarthy
The Army West Point Athletic Association appointed Dan McCarthy ’90 Interim Director of Athletics on April 5, 2019.
McCarthy has been with the department since the start of the 2017-18 season and was added to Boo Corrigan’s executive staff prior to the 2018-19 academic year. He joined the staff as the Associate Athletic Director for Administration after spending a season as the Director of Football Operations. McCarthy was on Jeff Monken’s staff after retiring from the military in 2017 after 27 years of service, attaining the rank of Colonel.
McCarthy is no stranger to West Point having served for fifteen years on the faculty as an academy professor in the Department of Systems Engineering. During that time he held a number of different positions to include serving as the Director of the Systems Engineering Program, the Director of the Operations Research Center, and the Deputy Department Head.
He also served as the Head Officer Representative of the Army West Point Sprint Football team for more than eight years where he worked closely with the players in all aspects of their off-field development. McCarthy was involved in several strategic initiatives undertaken by the Academy and the athletic department as well.
While assigned to West Point, McCarthy deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 with the 82nd Airborne Division serving as the Chief of Assessments. He later deployed to Iraq in 2010 where he served as the Chief of Strategic Assessments for US Forces Iraq. His most recent deployment was in the spring of 2014 to Djibouti in support of the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA).
A 1990 graduate of the United States Military Academy, McCarthy was a three-year letter winner on the sprint football team earning all-league honors his junior and senior years. During his three years with the program, the sprint team won two league championships including his senior year when McCarthy served as team captain and led the squad to an undefeated season. Following his senior season, McCarthy was named an Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Scholar-Athlete. McCarthy later returned to the team from 2001 to 2003 as an assistant coach where he tutored the wide receivers and tight ends while also coaching the kicking specialists.
Following his graduation from West Point in 1990, McCarthy was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Aviation Branch. Following his completion of Flight School at Fort Rucker, Ala., he served as a flight platoon leader in the 1st Armored Division in Germany and deployed his platoon of Blackhawk helicopters to Mogadishu, Somalia, as part of Operation Restore Hope. He returned to Germany and was later reassigned to the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, N.C., and served in multiple capacities including Commander of the Headquarters Company and as the Brigade Personnel Officer for the Aviation Brigade of the 82nd.
After his time at Fort Bragg, McCarthy earned his Master’s in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. Following graduate school, he returned to West Point as an assistant professor in the Department of Systems Engineering, where he served from 1999 to 2003. He then attended the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned his Ph.D. in Management. He returned to USMA in 2006 and rejoined the Department of Systems Engineering as an academy professor where he served until his retirement from the Army in 2017.
McCarthy and his wife Patty are the proud parents of four boys: Matthew (24), Shane (22), Michael (19), and Jack (14).
