Houston — Jim Harbaugh returned to college football nine years ago with the sole goal of turning around the Michigan program, which was at the time having serious problems.
He started provoking arguments and shoving elbows right away. He organized satellite recruitment events. He declared the SEC to be dishonest. He hosted sleepovers at potential clients’ homes. He got into arguments with officials and coaches. Even though he was losing three games a year, including one against Ohio State, he would go around asking, “Who’s got it better than us?”
He was unlike anything the sport had ever seen because Jim Harbaugh is unlike anyone the world has ever seen. He is a multimillionaire who used to only wear khaki pants, work youth camps without a shirt on, and call chickens “nervous birds” before starting to raise them himself.
He was peculiar, unconventional, and strange. It was far from the scene that unfolded here late on Monday, but it made a lot more sense when he could only bring Michigan back to a respectable level.
There stood Harbaugh, beneath confetti from the national championship, on a makeshift stage. Silently glancing around him, a man who rarely looks at ease was suddenly perfectly content, hugging players and beaming parents, proud alumni and dancing fans.
And beneath him, an entire sport.
Washington 13, Michigan 34.
The Wolverines, led by Jim Harbaugh, finished 15-0 and won the national championship.
“Excellent,” he would utter. “Assumed all challenges. We are the last group still alive.
A player with more grit than talent, he willed himself to a 16-year NFL career, earning the nickname “Captain Comeback.” Here stands Coach Chaos, a man strolling almost carelessly while chaos—much of it of his own making—erupts all around him.
The college football Harbaugh Era may be coming to an end. “I just want to enjoy this,” he said, declining to commit to returning to Ann Arbor when the NFL called again. “I want to just savor this. I’m hoping you give it to me. Can a man possess that? Has it got to always be, ‘What’s next, what’s the future?’
If he walks out, he’ll leave behind a shining trophy—a position atop the mountain that Michigan has seldom held.
The Wolverines are the only football team, at any level, to win more than 1,000 games, but other than a shared championship in 1997, their trophy case for national titles is rather empty. Nothing since the 1940s before that. Bo Schembechler was coached by Harbaugh’s father, and Harbaugh also played for Schembechler, but Schembechler never accomplished anything like this.
In addition, he would leave a trail of scandals behind him. Two distinct NCAA investigations, one looking into mid-level infractions, turned into a major case after it was determined that Harbaugh had been “misleading” investigators. The other involved a wild advanced scouting controversy that rocked the sport this season.
For every scandal, Harbaugh skipped three regular-season games, but more punishments are probably on the way. It’s not like he ever flinched. He was observed operating a chain gang at one of his son’s youth games, making McDonald’s runs, and watching the action on TV with his brother, Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh, while serving his suspensions.
He appeared to enjoy playing the bad guy and taking on imaginary or real “enemies.”
Some players were asked how they handled a season filled with lawsuits and setbacks.
It went better than it could have,” Harbaugh said. “Every game was won exactly how we wanted it to. We knew we were innocent, and these guys are innocent, so we stood tall and strong in the face of the off-field issues. We knew we were innocent, so it wasn’t that difficult for us to overcome that. So, yes, everything went precisely as planned.
Though Harbaugh has the right to insist on his innocence and neither case has been decided in its entirety, eh? Then again, perhaps he does think all of that. Or he just doesn’t give a damn.
It is irrelevant. This explains why Jim Harbaugh is such an anarchist agent.
This is how and why he turned around a program that had only finished 24-32 in Big Ten play the eight seasons before, was being dominated by Michigan State, was losing to Toledo, and couldn’t imagine beating the Buckeyes. All those coaches in Tuscaloosa, Athens, Columbus, and Clemson were sitting at home, observing him revel in his success.
The best recruits didn’t sign with them; instead, they usually go elsewhere. It was with the best recruits for him, a group of brothers who identify with his eccentricities, who have faith in the school and the program, and who are drawn to his bulldog
