By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com

In sports, "hero" is a term that's often used for the individual who tallies the game-winning touchdown or makes an exceptional play. In life, however, "hero" is reserved for people of distinguished courage and who are appreciated for their daring and virtuous characteristics.

Former Fighting Illini football letterman Tim McCarthy has earned his place in this elite category. It wasn't until nearly a decade after his playing days at Illinois that the truly heroic portion of his life would come to light.

That day was forty years ago – on March 30, 1981 – when McCarthy took a bullet in defense of President Ronald Reagan.

McCarthy's path to football was a bit of an unorthodox one. Young Tim played football in grammar school, but only weighed in at around 100 pounds as a freshman at all-male Leo Catholic High School in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood of southside Chicago. He lettered in wrestling and track and field but decided not to participate in his favorite sport—football—due to his slight frame. A mid-teens growth spurt, topping him off at 145 pounds, allowed McCarthy to change his mind going into his senior year.

As an academically gifted University of Illinois freshman in the Fall of 1967, he "seemed to have some extra time on my hands."

"I went to the football office, asked if I could sign up, and they agreed," McCarthy said. "J.C. Caroline was the freshman coach at the time and we were the scout team for the varsity."

As a sophomore in 1968, the Illini coaches moved McCarthy from split end to strong safety in mid-season and he wound up playing 44 minutes, primarily in the final four games. In the second semester, Coach Jim Valek's staff surprisingly rewarded him with a scholarship.

McCarthy played extensively as a junior, logging 198 minutes and recording 64 tackles. The most notable individual play of his career came that season against Purdue, a 46-yard interception return from a pass thrown by Boilermaker quarterback and 1969 Heisman Trophy runner-up Mike Phipps.

When is college career came to an end, the finance major interviewed with a number of home state companies, but says he "didn't get the warm fuzzies to be in a finance department somewhere."

That's when he checked out careers with the Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a line of work similar to his father (Norman) who was a sergeant with the Chicago Police Department.

 "At that time, the Secret Service and FBI were looking for business majors to do white-collar, criminal investigations," McCarthy said. "The Secret Service does criminal investigations from field offices, but it also does protection, so the combination of the two seemed pretty interesting."

In late January of 1972, McCarthy was on a skiing vacation in Colorado with Illini teammates Doug Dieken and Bob Burns when he got news of his acceptance.

"The letter said that I had been hired and that I was to report to the Chicago field office," McCarthy said. "We cut the skiing trip short and I got on a plane and reported for duty."

For the initial six months, McCarthy attended treasury and law enforcement school in Washington, D.C. He then was assigned in Chicago for the next seven years, working cases that involved counterfeit currency, recovering stolen government checks and bonds, and investigating threat cases against the President.

The track then called for a transfer to protection of the President, Vice President, or a former President and, based upon glowing performance evaluations and recommendations, McCarthy was transferred to Washington to join a team that protected President Jimmy Carter.

Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 election, but McCarthy remained in his position.

On March 30, 1981, McCarthy was assigned to a protection unit for President Reagan's noon address to a group of building trades union members at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

"After the speech was over, we left. The Hilton Ballroom is actually below level," McCarthy recalled.  "As we left, we walked in a specific formation around the President. The door of the armored car was open as it was supposed to be as we got close to it. Just as we got there, John Hinckley pushed himself forward and fired six rounds with a revolver in about 1.4 seconds."

The shots hit four people. Presidential Press Secretary Jim Brady, a 1962 University of Illinois graduate, was the first to be hit. The other victims were D.C. policeman Tom Delahanty, the President and McCarthy in 1.4 seconds. The President was pushed into the armored car and was ultimately taken to George Washington Hospital. McCarthy, who had taken a bullet in his chest, was sent to the same hospital.

"In the Secret Service, your training is to cover and evacuate the President," McCarthy explained. "You constantly go through training to that effect. You simulate attacks on the President, practicing with flash-bangs (a grenade that produces a bright flash and a loud noise so as to stun or disorient people without causing serious injury), with pistols with blanks, so the techniques are drilled into you. So when it actually happens, you cover the President—as I did—and others evacuate the President, as Jerry Parr and Ray Shattuck did. It's training, just like you train for football. We train our military to charge up the hill in the face of gunfire, we train our firemen to go into burning buildings, and we train our policemen to go down dark alleys. This was really a result of training."

After 10 days recovering in the hospital, McCarthy received a message shortly before he was released.

"My wife and children were picking me up at the hospital, and we got a message to come up to see the President in his room before we left," he said. "That sounded a bit like an order, so we went up there. He was still hooked up to several of the same kinds of machines that I'd been hooked up to. My kids, being kids, were fascinated by all of the flashing lights on the equipment that was largely connected to the President.

"Just as we were about to walk out of the room, the President said 'Hold on, Tim … wait a minute. What was it with this guy? McCarthy, Brady, Delahanty, Reagan … what the hell did this guy have against the Irish?' That's the way the man was.

"There's a theory that, in incidents such as this, a third of the people never effectively go back to what they were doing before they were traumatized. We now know it as PTSD. Another third of the people go back, but they have residual effects, and another third it doesn't bother them in the slightest. For the President, this wasn't going to affect the rest of his presidency or the rest of his life. He was a great example for me."

McCarthy completed two more years of service with the President, then was transferred back to Chicago. After two-and-a-half years, he was transferred back to Washington to become the assistant special agent in charge … the number two person.

His supervisory responsibilities included the President, but he also oversaw the transportation section (agents that drive the armored limos) and protection of the First Lady.

"I often traveled with Mrs. Reagan and her liaison, so I got to know her extremely well during that time," McCarthy said. "She was doing quite a bit of foreign travel by herself into some places where the threat level was pretty high."

After three more years with President Reagan and a year with President George H.W. Bush, McCarthy was transferred back to Chicago and was promoted to Special Agent in charge of the Chicago Division of the Secret Service (approximately 100 agents in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana). After three years in that position, McCarthy was offered a position with a security company "that I couldn't pass up." He stepped away from that brief stint in the private sector in May of 1994 to became Chief of Police for the City of Orland Park, Ill. 

Twenty-six years later—on Aug. 1, 2020—McCarthy retired.

For the last several years, McCarthy has been an active Illini football fan, attending both Illinois's 2019 victories in Champaign over Wisconsin and in East Lansing over Michigan State.

Tim McCarthy is Doug Dieken's definition of a hero.

"To begin as a walk-on, then earn a scholarship, then became a starter, then to save the life of a president … that's a pretty special person," Dieken said. "Tim is just a special, special human being."