MGoBlog Throwback - "Destroy Harbaugh"

Submitted by goblueram on

Thanks to this post on the board, I was reading the Harbaugh article published by "The Ringer".  At one point it mentions that the M football family was "pissed off" at Harbaugh after he took shots at Michigan's academic standards for athletes.  I thought about it, and I do remember being pissed off.  Hell, Mike Hart even said this about Harbaugh:

“He’s not a Michigan man,” tailback Mike Hart was quoted as saying in Thursday’s Detroit News. “I wish he had never played here. But it is what it is.”

So what did the blog say at the time?  That's when Brian posted "Destroy Harbaugh" circa August, 2007.  He tells Harbaugh that he's full of crap, and a "verbal moron".

I mean, Jim Harbaugh has to be some sort of verbal moron but he's still in the 99.9th percentile when it comes to being a quarterback. In one particular aspect of his life, Jim Harbaugh is indisputably brilliant. We shouldn't look down on him just because there are six-year-olds with a better sense of what an appropriate public discourse is.

I think it's pretty interesting how our opinions of this man have changed over the years.  I was probably inclined to agree with Mike Hart back then (maybe not to that extent).   Maybe Harbaugh still doesn't have a good sense of appropriate public discourse, but that's what makes all the Harbaugh-isms great.  Or maybe everything's okay now since he's our guy.

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ElBictors

September 7th, 2016 at 12:41 PM ^

Harbaugh was back on campus while playing QB for the Bears when I was in undergrad and he showed up at a Frat party at a house that was made up of a lot of A2 kids.  He was a total dick - a drunk ass and made a bit of a spectacle of himself.  A friend of mine - whose niece is the current Harbaugh Nanny - lived in Chicago after undergrad and has similar stories of Harbaugh acting like a dick, in those younger days...

 

But that was then.  And some of the reason for why he said what he did was also to prop up Stanford and clarify that while UM is academically rigorous, that it was no Stanford.  There was also the story that Mary Sue Coleman and some boosters had serious misgivings about Harbaugh back then based on his DUI and other issues.

 

Water under the bridge to me... 

Joined: 03/27/2015

MGoPoints: 8446

MGB

September 7th, 2016 at 12:42 PM ^

Not sure why we're revisiting this? Harbaugh is awesome.. Mike Hart is awesome.. 63-3 was awesome... The playoffs this year will be awesome.. Good times ahead, why look back?

Joined: 11/29/2015

MGoPoints: 888

CTSgoblue

September 7th, 2016 at 12:53 PM ^

Ahh..August 2007: a time of such promise and naivete.  We were ranked #5 preseason and Appalachian State had not happened yet.  Mike Hart and Chad Henne were entering their senior years, and I (and I assume many others) could feel a big season ahead.  As a fanbase, we definitely had our chests puffed out a bit.

A lot has changed since then.  My opinion of Harbaugh has very much changed too.

Joined: 08/20/2014

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noahtahl

September 7th, 2016 at 1:54 PM ^

Brian Cook- Very intelligent. At times hilarious. Almost always arrogant. Evolving. Cult leader. Hairy. Lately very lazy. Forgiving??

Jim Harbaugh-Our Coach

Joined: 11/12/2008

MGoPoints: 145

UMxWolverines

September 7th, 2016 at 2:36 PM ^

To be fair Harbaugh was not exactly on good terms with Lloyd as Scot Leoffler was chosen as qb coach over him in 2002. I think now it's clear he would have been a better choice.

Joined: 03/01/2009

MGoPoints: 65642

markusr2007

September 7th, 2016 at 2:39 PM ^

to assume that Jim Harbaugh hasn't changed personnel since 2007.  I think he has. I also think he has improved and learned many things from those comments, and later on while at San Francisco as well.

As far as I'm concerned, it's all "water under the bridge".

However, what is interesting is to read the articles and tone on the blog at that time - August 2007.

I don't think anyone could have imagined the chronology of unfortunate events that would befall the football program a few weeks later, and the 8 years of circling the drain that followed.

Perspective.

 

Joined: 10/21/2008

MGoPoints: 19372

Blueinsconsin

September 7th, 2016 at 6:31 PM ^

Winning football games and turning a program around will do that.  Just look at ohio state's fandom and how they viewed Urban Meyer when he was destroying ohio state while coaching Florida to what they feel now.

Harbaugh made a comment against our favorite team, one that he used to play for, of course we'll be upset.  But, a lot of time has gone by and clearly that issue is no longer important to anyone.

Joined: 08/24/2011

MGoPoints: 3618

grumbler

September 10th, 2016 at 10:19 AM ^

I am not sure who you mean by "we" other than yourself.  Mike Leach is a lot like Harbaugh, isn't from Michigan, and isn't our team's coach, but he is still pretty popular around here.  I think that you are wrong about the hypothetical non-Michigan Harbaugh.

Joined: 08/17/2011

MGoPoints: 14174

drzoidburg

September 8th, 2016 at 1:20 AM ^

My opinion has not changed. I was a student at the time of those insights by Harbaugh and I fully agreed with them. I never saw the football players at any of my classes, after all. They certainly got preferential treatment in admissions, they got tutors, they got steered to sports management, and if Harbaugh is a hypocrite for anything, it's because he didn't speak up in 1986 and because all that continues under his watch now. I hear a lot of that took place at Stanford too Mike Hart, I don't want to speculate on his classroom ethic, but i do know he made efforts to be involved on campus, above and beyond what's typical of a football player. So I understand if he took offense, but that doesn't change that what Harbaugh said was true about *most* of those players. Pretty much everyone I've seen whining about this comes up short Defensiveness from academics won't cut it either, because even Harvard cuts the rigor for jocks. Cal Tech is about the only elite school that doesn't. Yale reinstated the standards somewhat and not surprisingly its teams began sucking bad. These are the choices that are made. All i'm saying is let's be honest. We can't have a top 5 football team all with 34+ ACT and premed If we're honest we can move on to the next question - Should we even care? Why should we have shittier teams just because the admissions standards are much higher than say MSU or Illinois? The one change i would definitely make is so that GSIs aren't grading famous athlete term papers and doling out A- for illiterate tripe. That is wading into North Carolina levels of fraud and quite unfair to real students

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