Scott McCartney spent nearly 30 years commanding Coast Guard operations from Australia to Alaska before he ever touched a set of turntables in a college classroom. Today the retired Coast Guard commander, known to his students as DJ Smoove the Rough, teaches what is believed to be the nation's first three-credit DJing course at Miami Dade College's Kendall Campus.
McCartney's path from military officer to adjunct professor was not seamless. As reported by WPLG Local 10, he struggled with the transition from military to civilian life and needed help finding his footing after retiring from the service. He turned to United Way Miami's Mission United program, which the station reports helped him strengthen his resume and rebuild his confidence during that transition.
Mission United is not a small operation. The program provided free support services valued at $507,720 to 419 local military veterans in a single operational year, according to Cause IQ. The initiative actually originated in South Florida through the United Way of Broward County in 2013 and has since expanded to more than 30 United Way chapters nationwide, functioning as a single point of entry for veterans and their families seeking job placement, housing help, legal aid, and financial coaching, as reported by CBS Miami. United Way Miami also partners with institutions including Florida International University and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to host multi-agency summits offering career, financial, and wellness resources to local veterans.
From the Bridge to the Booth
McCartney retired at the rank of O-5, or Commander, a senior officer position above Lieutenant Commander and below Captain that typically requires 16 to 20 years of commissioned service and carries heavy operational command and administrative responsibilities, per Military-Ranks.org. Over his nearly three-decade career, the married father of five served in Australia, Alaska, Washington D.C., Florida, and Miami. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, a master's degree in telecommunications management, and a master's degree in multimedia journalism, and he is expected to earn a third master's degree, this one in music production, next month.
McCartney was not new to DJing when he stepped into the classroom. In December 2021, competing under his stage name DJ Smoove, he advanced to the top 16 master mixers nationwide in the UpStaged Entertainment Group College DJ Championship while representing Miami Dade College. That competitive background helped lay the groundwork for a curriculum he would go on to build from scratch.
Building a Credit-Bearing DJ Curriculum
The course launched using funds from a $300,000 federal Carl D. Perkins Program grant, which covered turntables, mixers, speakers, vinyl records, and digital DJ controllers, according to The Reporter. The equipment gave the college's performing arts department the tools to turn DJing from an extracurricular hobby into an accredited discipline. The three-credit course now sits within a broader academic environment, since Kendall Campus also offers Associate in Science degrees in Music Business with tracks in performance, production, and management, supported by a dedicated Music/Humanities Lab and electronic classrooms equipped with high-performance workstations.
McCartney expects his students to be punctual and prepared, treating the class with the same discipline he once demanded on duty. Student Omar Sanchez Zelaya described the course as feeling like DJ boot camp, according to the same Local 10 report. Another student, Amanda O'Connor, said she discovered through McCartney's class that she is musically inclined, a realization she credits directly to his teaching.
A Mission Beyond the Classroom
McCartney's work extends past his official course load. He created the Turntable Sharks DJ Club at Miami Dade College to give students hands-on experience curating campus events, building on his earlier work with the S Foundation, a nonprofit he founded to teach music and turntable skills to youth in underserved South Florida communities, according to details shared through the Miami Book Fair. He has said he uses music and education as tools to help students discover abilities they did not know they had.
McCartney's story lands against the backdrop of a sizable local veteran population. Miami-Dade County is home to an estimated 77,000 to 82,000 military veterans out of Florida's statewide total of more than 1.4 million, making Florida the third most veteran-populated state in the nation, according to the National Association of Counties. That scale underscores why transition support programs matter to so many families in the region, and why state lawmakers have taken notice. In March 2025, the Florida Legislature evaluated Senate Bill 116, which would require the Florida Department of Veterans' Affairs to coordinate directly with the U.S. Department of Defense to better engage service members re-entering civilian life and raise awareness of available benefits, per the Florida Senate Appropriations Committee on Health and Human Services.
McCartney's story is featured on Good News South Florida, which airs Fridays at 10 a.m. on Local 10 Morning News, with encores Fridays at 3:30 p.m. and Sunday mornings beginning at 6 a.m. For a veteran who once commanded Coast Guard missions across the country, his newest assignment is teaching a room full of college students how to read a crowd, cue a track, and find their own rhythm.
