Everybody graduates.
There's always an end to the days of your college experience. Everyone, from students to professors, knows that conclusion is in sight from the time you arrive.
Your seat in class will be filled by someone else next year, and so will your dorm room. That rental house, your rental house, that you will remember? It will be someone else's next year, and the year after that, until you come back one day to find it renovated or removed, gone to the finite era that you're from.
The key to all of this is making the most of that precious time, achieving in all aspects of your experience, before it seems to end quicker than you might have expected.
For nine remarkable seasons, Jim Harbaugh made the absolute most of his time as coach, caretaker, gardener, teacher, mentor, and servant as the head football coach of the University of Michigan. The absolute most, by any definition.
There's all of the winning, which is going to get mentioned, because we're the defending national champions. Reigning and defending national champions, three-time defending Big Ten champions, all things for the first line of any recap. Going to the Rose Bowl, winning the Rose Bowl, ending Alabama, yes, absolutely. All things for any recap video.
It's also an active winning streak, home and road, against every Big Ten opponent. It's winning games that will run in perpetuity forever, resurrecting the joy of that time and place whenever we find them online or on whatever television becomes. It's finding those photos on your phone, that ticket stub in your car, that social media reminder and remembering once again how fully, completely wonderful all of this was.
It will, as it is with every other college coach, about the players as well, who will live out their Michigan alum days forever as a Coach Harbaugh guy. They will be in the NFL, posting a photo reuniting with their coach in the years to come. They'll be at the draft, possibly even getting picked by their former coach. But all of these guys will be at the tailgates, the alumni functions, the autograph signings, the reunions, all a testament back to this same joy.
At the same time though, these nine years were so much fun. It was always fun to be around, always some combination of forward-thinking and weird, in the best kind of way. From all of the big ideas, to all of the innovation, to seeing guys genuinely growing through trips and experiences, it's always been fun for the whole community.
We've gone from having a coach advocating for players to have greater freedom of happiness to a cornerstone Wolverine and his teammates shutting down the fanciest shopping mall in Michigan for a toy drive. That's part of the Harbaugh legacy too.
All of these memories, from the games to each of our experiences, are going to live forever in an era remembered for absolute and utter joy.
And really, that comes for everyone and their college experience. Everyone graduates from that time, in one way or another. Jim Harbaugh graduated from his time as Michigan coach with a national championship, with a team of sons that will continue his legacy in so many ways in the NFL and beyond, and with the greatest possible endings. Everyone graduates, and none have graduated as well as Jim Harbaugh, Michigan man.
January 25th, 2024 at 12:20 AM ^
Well said, Gordon.
I've been thinking a lot lately about these themes and indeed wondering how I would feel once the news was finally announced.
I joined this community at the outset of the Harbaugh era, and I've thoroughly enjoyed my time here. But in order to grow, we must know when to move on. For me, that time has come.
Thanks for the memories, everybody.
January 25th, 2024 at 3:37 AM ^
We now know that Hotel Putingrad was actually Jim (or more likely Jay) Harbaugh.
January 25th, 2024 at 6:05 AM ^
Don't go. Please put on hold your plan to invade other Eastern block countries and impregnating nimble Russian gymnasts a bit longer. I'm begging you!
January 25th, 2024 at 7:13 AM ^
I’m a Michigan alum and fan. My children (twins) are currently juniors at Michigan.
I sang The Victors to my son as his goodnight song and we’ve been going to games since he was five years old.
The last three seasons have simply been the best - and you could feel the atmosphere on campus. It’s been an exceptional time to be a Michigan student and fan.
Go Blue!
January 25th, 2024 at 7:42 AM ^
Blutarski says 'Hi'
January 25th, 2024 at 8:24 AM ^
enjoyed it while it lasted
Michigan football will fade just like stanford eventually faded w/o Harbaugh
January 25th, 2024 at 8:32 AM ^
For some reason, I thought this article was going to focus on the football team's APR - Academic Progress Rate - which is believe is "1". Technically - it is "1.000" - which, like Team 144's record on the field this season - is perfect.
Jim - and the staff - and the players - weren't just focused on "Saturdays" - they were focused on academics at the same time.
Go Blue!
January 25th, 2024 at 10:11 AM ^
I love this sentiment, and it is so true. Time flies by, and what feels like forever in the moment only lasts a short while.
January 25th, 2024 at 11:27 AM ^
Realistically we were always going to take a step back next season, even if Harbaugh stayed. There are any number of factors you could cite, but there's not much higher you can go from 15-0. But if we've learned nothing else from the last nine years it's that you can in fact get up to the summit from the bottom.
We'll have to climb back down to the basecamp and re-supply, but we already know how to get back up to the summit and we're a fuckton closer than we were in 2015. We'll probably have to find a different route back up, but that's been the same with every championship. There's no sure thing in sports. Even with the best M team we may ever see in our lifetimes, we had at least a dozen inflection points where things could've gone tits up on our title hopes. That'll hold true for whomever wins it all next year and the year after. At some point Sherrone will have to adapt to stay ahead of th metagame the way Harbaugh did. Maybe he will, maybe he won't, but all we can do as fans is hope and trust that he does. To invoke someone wiser than I:
I want all Michigan fans to do this. Take 3 deep breaths... And have faith. Faith that every single Coach, player, employee in that building is doing everything they possibly can to be great.
— J.J. McCarthy (@jjmccarthy09) November 15, 2020
January 25th, 2024 at 12:02 PM ^
Realistically we were always going to take a step back next season, even if Harbaugh stayed. There are any number of factors you could cite, but there's not much higher you can go from 15-0.
This is very true, first and foremost in my mind because of the QB situation, with recruiting more generally a close second. While we haven't been littered with blue chips like the Bamas, UGAs and OSUs of the world, and had the lowest talent composite ranking of any CFP champion, we have been anchored the past few years by 5* and near-5* talent at some key positions--JJ, Corum and Edwards, Will Johnson, etc. JJ especially was important, as lack of elite QB play was possibly the biggest thing that held Harbaugh's earlier teams back. That well has seemingly dried up, and while we've done a great job of finding under-the-radar talent to fill out our roster, building, and maintaining, an elite program solely out of hidden gems is a tough row to hoe.
So I fully expected a step back next year even if Harbaugh stayed, with worries of potentially an even bigger step back starting in 2025 when most of the rest of the talent from this year's team heads to the NFL. But at least with Harbaugh there's a reasonable expectation of a floor. Moore could be great, and could even surpass Harbaugh, but with so little experience he's a wildcard, with the potential always there that the bottom could fall out.
January 25th, 2024 at 12:00 PM ^
Disagree that the NFL is the "next step" for coaches (unlike players, which is obvious). For coaches, NFL is simply a different career route - yet both are equally desirable final destinations... it all depends on the individual and the team.
January 25th, 2024 at 12:38 PM ^
Yeah, what probably hurts me the most is the "we can't have nice things" aspect of this. We were blessed for the past three years, which have been an amazing stretch, but it is a gut punch that unlike other elite programs who had coaches build dynasties in college (Saban at Bama, Bowdoin at FSU, Osborne at Nebraska, Paterno (scandal aside) at PSU, not to mention guys like Dabo, Urban, Tressel, Stoops, etc.), our savior coach would rather chase a Super Bowl he'll likely never get than try and cement his legacy as one of the greatest college coaches ever.
I dunno, it just hurts...
January 25th, 2024 at 4:26 PM ^
Love it.
January 25th, 2024 at 4:42 PM ^
Donna Martin graduates!
January 25th, 2024 at 7:15 PM ^
Very nice piece Gordon. Well said and well done.
January 25th, 2024 at 7:40 PM ^
Sure, I'll remember the last three years in a hazy golden light. Three team to be proud of in every way. But all also remember a lot of kooky things Harbaugh gave us over his tenure.
- Giving the Pope a Michigan Helmet
- Then taking his team to the beaches of Normandy
- Then topping all that by taking the team to South Africa. How awesome it that?
- Going from calling the chicken a 'nervous bird' to raising them.
- Climbing trees and sleepovers to recruit players
- Invading the south to conduct camps and playing football with them with no shirt on.
- Calling out Ryan "Born on Third Base" Day
- Having the balls to remake his coaching staff after 2020
- Keeping his dad, Jack, in the limelight
- and a host of other things that no other top flight CFB coach would think of doing.
It was never dull. Thanks, Coach Harbaugh!
January 26th, 2024 at 8:14 PM ^
Well said Grampy and OP! I’ve had similar thoughts but lack the literary skill to say them as well as all of you.
JH was a unique trailblazer, unafraid of the world commentary around him. He had/has a vision and pursued it with enthusiasm unknown to us at the time. It reminds me of the famous Teddy Roosevelt “Man in the Arena” speech I just learned about today:
”It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
January 25th, 2024 at 9:12 PM ^
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose.
January 25th, 2024 at 10:04 PM ^
This is awesome Gordon.
Also, here’s one of my favorite movie lines:
”Hey Gordon, think about the future.”
-The Joker
January 26th, 2024 at 8:24 AM ^
FYI -- and not that it detracts from the point you're trying to make -- but Michigan does not have a home winning streak against Wisconsin. They haven't played in Ann Arbor since 2020, and while it really feels like 2020 shouldn't count, I'm afraid it does.
(I'm ignoring the Big Ten newcomers for 2024 because, well, they belong in the Pac-12. But I can think of one of them against whom Michigan has a neutral site winning streak... ;)
January 26th, 2024 at 10:04 AM ^
I didn't remember that, thank you!
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