Bo would be proud of the brothers Harbaugh
I am guessing a lot of these anecdotes are going to be coming out this week, but here is one from Coach McCartney's son about their time as coaches' kids in the Michigan football program:
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/bruce-feldman/21616259/bo-must-be-proud-of-these-guys
January 26th, 2013 at 2:38 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 2:45 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 2:46 PM ^
I read this blog daily and I don't see any negative Harbaugh posts. Not sure what you are talking about.
January 26th, 2013 at 3:21 PM ^
Back when Mike Hart was the cover of the banner (or some point around that time) Harbaugh took (what many view to be) a jab at Bo, and Michigan Football's academic standards for football players.
Needless to say, it got ugly, and people are still bitter over it. I personally didn't like the comments, but who am I to judge*. if Harbaugh were to say, win a few superbowls, and want to coach Michigan once Brady Hoke was done, I'd be up for it.
*Harbaugh knew Bo, Michigan coaches, and sacrificed a lot more than I have for Michigan athletics.
January 26th, 2013 at 2:52 PM ^
In all fairness Bo wasn't the coach when many of the posters on this blog were alive and even if they were alive they certainly weren't old enough to have followed Bo while he was actually coaching. They certanly have heard stories and maybe grew up with their parents as fans of Bo, but it's not quite the same. It's a different generation that grew up in different times.
January 26th, 2013 at 3:00 PM ^
Where did Jim play his HS football? In Michigan?
I assume Bo had an eye on him long enough to offer him to play here.
January 26th, 2013 at 3:08 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 3:07 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 3:26 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 4:38 PM ^
He would only have played his fresh & soph years at Pioneer since he moved to Palo Alto when his father became defensive coordinator at Stanford in 1980.
I'm curious if he played varsity QB as a fresh or soph. Pioneer has always been pretty competitive, so I wonder if he was able to make Varsity & play QB as a freshman.
January 26th, 2013 at 3:42 PM ^
I thought this might be good to share in this thread.
Here's an interesting short piece from AnnArbor.com from a former teammate of Jim and John from their days playing for the Ann Arbor Packers- (LINK)
The bit below made me chuckle admittedly. When the interviewee, David Thayer (now of Kalamazoo) discusses being initially the starting QB:
"It became clear from Jim and his non-verbal signals, which he hides them as well now as he did then, that he was not thrilled about not playing quarterback. Jim was there to play quarterback. I was there to just play.”
January 26th, 2013 at 3:39 PM ^
Nice little column there. Interesting to hear McCartney's son's take on that old story.
He says this about Jim's success: "I suspect that fearless mindset has something to do with it."
There is a lot to be said for putting yourself in a state of fearlessness. It is tough to do for any length of time. Its like the toughest animal in the woods (wolverines) ... you either have it or you dont.
John Harbaugh has always seemed like a very classy guy. This will be fun Super Bowl in a large part due to this brother-brother matchup. Some other good matchups would have been:
The Gameshow Bowl (Whats your Deal?) - Harbaugh vs. Pete Carroll
The Pansy Bowl (oh you slapped my hand too hard) Harbaugh vs. Schwartz
The Michigan Man Bowl - Harbaugh vs. Brady..
anyway the Pansy Bowl will never happen..we know that much. Congrats to the Harbaughs.
January 26th, 2013 at 3:58 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 5:31 PM ^
and agree with most of them , but please stop to take a breath next time---maybe, just maybe, it will allow you to break such a looooooong post into a few smaller, easier-to-read paragraphs.
January 26th, 2013 at 5:49 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 5:36 PM ^
The idea that ND just suddenly discovered that it needed to lower its admissions standards for athletes is complete nonsense. They've been doing it forever, too. Tony Rice, the starting QB of their 1988 national champion team, was a Prop 48 casualty (meaning his HS GPA was below 2.0 and/or his SAT was below 700).
January 26th, 2013 at 5:52 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 5:58 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 6:14 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 7:46 PM ^
is the fact that Harbaugh was a teammate of Stefan Humphries, 2 time Academic All-American to go with a football All-American award.
For those of you who might not know the name, Humphries went on to become a member of the '85 Super Bowl Bears "Shuffling Crew". He narrowly missed being selected for a Rhodes Scholarship. After finishing his residency at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Humphries practices in Washington State. I've never heard Humphries complain about the way he was steered at Michigan.
January 26th, 2013 at 8:44 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 9:35 PM ^
I love Jim, even with all his antics & imperfections. What he said made sense to me- the university did have lower academic standards for athletes w/r/t to entry test scores and grades. And why wouldn't the Athletic Dept steer the athletes to take classes & have majors that they would be successful in?
My experience though was a little different. I was a TA in Chemistry when Jim Harbaugh started at Michigan and was (according to him) steered away from majoring in History. That same year I had a football student-athlete in one of my classes who did very poorly. I can't remember if he failed, but I do remember him phoning me at home late one night when the semester ended asking me if there was anything he could do to raise his grade. There wasn't and I don't think he was even close to get a bump, e.g. like on the cusp. I think he told me he needed a C or else it would be a major problem. At that point it was too late to do better in my class, but afterwards, if he was able to stay in the program, his coaches or counselors hopefully steered him away from taking classes that would set him up to fail.
January 26th, 2013 at 5:28 PM ^
I agree with you totally. As revered as Bo was/is when it came to football he had his dramatic tantrums on the sidelines too. Even if he was doing all the right things to win Big Ten championships, he seemed like an emotional pressure cooker ready to explode. I can see a lot of Bo in Jim's coaching drama.
On the other hand Lloyd seemed more down to earth & calming. I can see that he might not have wanted someone like Jim, with all the ego & unpredictability to join his team. I really liked Scot Loeffler & thought he did a really good job as QB coach, but in retrospect.... we'll never know if Jim would have been a better choice. Jim is a great head coach, but what about his one-on-one coaching skills?
To win more games it may have been right to bring Jim on-board as soon as he was ready to coach full time. But I think his personal life was pretty unstable back then & who knows if the AA lifestyle would have matured him any faster. A DUI as a UM coach might have ended his coaching appointment all too soon, especially in light of Moeller being let go.
Realistically, with his current wife who wants to stay in Cali & a new baby, I can't see Jim ever coming back to AA for a coaching position... unless his wife runs off with the gardner and he falls in love with an AA woman over the internet...not likely.
January 26th, 2013 at 5:55 PM ^
January 26th, 2013 at 11:45 PM ^
I've been a 49ers fan just as long as I've rooted for Michigan, so I've paid pretty close attention to Harbaugh for the last couple years. I can't speculate about how he would have performed as UM's qb coach had he been hired instead of SL, but comparing Alex Smith's numbers '05-'10 vs. '11-'12 indicates Jim does a pretty good job working 1 on 1 with qb's... Not to mention spotting, convincing front office to trade up to draft, and developing Kaepernick.