Scott Charles McCoy was born and raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, Ray, was an Irish-American auto mechanic and former U.S. Army military policeman. His mother, Wilma, was a bus driver of Cherokee Native American ancestry. After McCoy graduated from high school, he went on to Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. As an Army Reserve Officers Training Corps cadet, he attended and graduated from the U.S. Army Air Assault School the summer before his senior year. McCoy graduated from Texas A&M with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics and a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army via ROTC.