Patrick "PJ" McCarty

Patrick "PJ" McCarty is the founder, executive director, and head coach of The Distance Project. He serves as head track and field and cross country coach at Carson City–Crystal School in mid-Michigan, where his day-to-day work with student-athletes is the foundation of everything TDP does.

PJ founded The Distance Project after years of watching the same pattern from the coaching side: talented kids who could compete at a higher level, kept out of the sport by costs their families could not absorb. Meet entry fees. Spike replacements every spring. Camp tuition. A bus ride to a championship meet. Small line items that quietly decide who continues in the sport and who does not. TDP exists to close those gaps directly — funding equipment, travel, scholarships, and camp tuition for individual athletes by name.

The organization runs on a principle PJ borrowed from his service in the U.S. Army: accountable, no waste, mission first. Every donation is tracked to where it is spent, annual giving statements go out to donors in January, and the board operates under a written conflict-of-interest policy with formal meeting records. The platform donors use to give was built in-house — PJ owns and operates PJM Designs LLC and developed the donation, application, and reporting systems himself, which keeps overhead low and lets nearly every donated dollar reach an athlete.

PJ lives in mid-Michigan with his wife and children. He is a U.S. Army veteran.