San Diego Family has Jim Harbaugh on the Cover of the June 2005 Issue!
Here's what Jim Harbaugh Shares thoughts on Family, Sports and Parenting!
He walks alone into his dimly lit basement office, cloistered from the chaos of clashing linemen on the turf of the Toreros’ football field. You would hardly expect that a 15-year NFL quarterback, who started his career as the 1987 first-round draft pick with the Chicago Bears, spends so many waking hours here.
A soft hush permeates this catacomb-like space, nestled in a corner of Guadalupe Hall, but only for a fleeting moment. The minute Jim Harbaugh, head football coach for the University of San Diego Toreros, enters the room, his office becomes ablaze with game-day spirit and fervor.
Harbaugh radiates enthusiasm in virtually everything he does, from playing professional football and coaching college athletes, to playing soccer with his kids and conversing candidly about family. His youthful mannerisms and easygoing demeanor belie the passion at the heart of this man. And his unpretentious, sometimes self-effacing manner makes Harbaugh an affable, approachable guy.
“I love football,” this father of three says. “I really do. I love what it stands for and what it’s about. It’s just different than any other sport.” And Harbaugh comes by this love honestly, as the son of Jack Harbaugh, a 41-year career college football coach who retired in February 2003 as head coach at Western Kentucky.
To some extent, Harbaugh grew up living the life of a military family, since he and his siblings moved frequently as his dad received promotions to new coaching jobs. All told, Harbaugh lived in a dozen communities, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Palo Alto, California, and various college towns in between. In his words, moving was “the natural, normal thing to do,” and he credits those experiences with giving him so many commonalities with a broad range of people.
Asked about his childhood years, Harbaugh earnestly explains, “It was the best, like the Cleavers. It was a perfect, loving family, with parents who spent a lot of time with their kids. Everything really revolved around the family.” And despite the fact that his coaching career kept his father away for long hours during the day, “Dad always made it home for dinner.”
Harbaugh speaks endearingly about his family and his youth. “Mom cooked dinner every night. She baked cookies. We all sat down together,” he says. “Everything was just the way it was supposed to be.”
Aside from family, the highlight of Harbaugh’s early years involves the hours he spent on college football fields. “A lot of times, I’d go to my dad’s practice,” he says. “I’d spend my afternoons messing around, jumping on the dummies.”
But even better than practice were college game days, especially during the family’s years in Michigan. “I lived for those football Saturdays. The Michigan-Ohio State game was the biggest day of the year. It was better than Christmas,” he says with a huge grin.
That helps to explain why Harbaugh, an all-league football, basketball and baseball player who graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1983, selected the University of Michigan over other colleges recruiting him as a senior, standout athlete. “Bo Schembechler said, ‘We want you. You’re coming to school here,’” Harbaugh says. “This was a guy I’d known since I was 10 years old. I really idolized him.”
Unbeknown to many, along with his passion for football, Coach Harbaugh harbors a passion for history. “I wanted to be a history major,” he says. But due to the demands placed on him as quarterback anchor of the Wolverines football program, his coaches advised him to pursue a less-reading and research-intense major.
“I just couldn’t play football and be a history major,” Harbaugh says. “But after college, I got back into it. I read a lot of books. History became my passion after college, really for about 10 years.”
In terms of his own coaching philosophy and style, Harbaugh is adamant that his players’ educations come first. “Football is supposed to be an enhancement to your college experience,” he says. “It’s basically leadership training at 3:30 on fall afternoons. It’s not life or death. It’s not anything else.”
To that end, Harbaugh runs a tight ship with all of his players. “I see my role as coach to make every experience a meaningful, fun one for them and make each person better,” he says. Likewise, he aspires to make certain that his players set an example for other students to follow.
Basically, Harbaugh employs the same coaching philosophy that his mentor, Schembechler, followed: “Live clean. Be clean. Be different. Set a higher standard for yourself.”
Unlike many college coaches, Harbaugh takes a personal interest in each of his players. “You have 100 kids on a football team. And they’re not all the same,” he says.
“They don’t get motivated the same way. They don’t respond to the same kind of things. They’re not going to respond to what I respond to. So you just have to find what motivates each one and challenges each one to try to get the most out of them.”
Harbaugh makes certain his office door is always open. He surprises his players in the college dining hall several times a week. “You’ve got to get to know them,” he says with passion. “You spend time with them. You build a relationship with them, one day at a time, one conversation at a time. You build some trust.”
As he explains this, it’s evident Harbaugh feels he’s at the zenith of his career. “I’ve been lucky,” he says. “I get to do what I want to do. It’s been like adult recess for me. I played sports. I played professionally. Now this coaching…” and he sits back and grins.
But life hasn’t always been so lucky for Harbaugh. Flash back to 1993. “It was the end of the ‘93 season. The Bears had just cut me,” he muses. Then he reveals the unfortunate set of events to follow. “I got fired from my job. My dog was sick and dying. My girlfriend dumped me,” he confides, with a sly grin. “I felt like I was living a country-music song.”
Despite the fact that all these things took place in one week, Harbaugh can laugh about it now. Again, it’s the passion and enthusiasm at the heart of this man that give credence to what would follow. After leaving the Bears, he joined the Indianapolis Colts organization, led this team to the AFC Championship game and was named the 1995 Comeback Player of the Year.
More importantly, he reconciled with his “girlfriend,” Miah Burke, now his wife and loving mother of the three Harbaugh children. Asked how he managed, catapulting himself to the top of his NFL career while caring for three growing children at home, he endearingly admits, “How did I manage? Miah did most of the work.”
Harbaugh gives his wife much of the credit for the stability and warmth that exudes from his home. “I really love my family,” he says. “My wife does a lot of the work. God bless her.” But, like his own dad, Harbaugh makes it home, every day, to play with his kids.
And play Harbaugh does with aplomb. “Everything’s a game,” he says. “My kids like to come out and play hide-and-go-seek. And everything is like, this is the greatest. This is race day!”
He credits his own dad for teaching him to bring this exciting dynamic to life. “My dad just had this way of making everything so exciting. It’s all so dynamic,” he says. “If there’s one thing I took from my dad, I took from him his enthusiasm. If I can pass that on to my kids, I feel like that would be really great.”
Much the same way Harbaugh approaches playing, coaching and parenting, he approaches life with a winning spirit.
“There’s an importance in winning,” he says. “You’ve got to win. You’ve got to be good at what you’re doing. There’s no such thing as having an off day.” And perhaps that’s why he loves family and football so much.
“I think it’s important to understand that, ‘You must win,’” Harbaugh says as he ponders parenting and life. “Every day’s a game day!”
Award-winning free-lance writer Jeanmarie Bond lives in Coronado.
Photo by Donna Wright
