This is why Jim Harbaugh should go to Michigan.
Did you read Seth Wickersham’s profile of Harbaugh back at the beginning of October? That profile is why he should go to Michigan.
Look at this man.
At the University of San Diego, where in three years he turned a joke of a program into a two-time Pioneer League champion, he ran hills with the players, sometimes pushing through his own vomit. At Stanford, where he engineered a once-in-a-generation turnaround, he renamed the Oklahoma drill the Stanford drill to signify the toughness he wanted to instill. At San Francisco he makes the winning side run gassers after two-minute practice.
He is certifiable.
A speech Harbaugh delivered to the team a few days later, entitled “2014 1st Team Meeting,” explained his approach to battle. He usually writes in a spiral notebook, but this was typed and eight pages long. “I will be your alarm clock and wake you early,” he said. “It can be a great temptation to rest on the field and let the opponent have a play without making him pay for every inch. I must hold his pain where it is. Mine does not matter … The punishment I inflict, his fatigue, and that he is up against something that he does not comprehend is everything.”
The best part of that speech is that he called it “2014 1st Team Meeting.” He’s organized and obsessive enough to name all his speeches, but too busy holding his enemy’s pain to actually come up with a real name.
It was vintage Harbaugh, sincere and obsessive, inspiring and crazed. And its decisive moment, as Harbaugh described how he fights in the trenches, contained a clue as to why a coach who has won 74.5 percent of his games might just be expendable: “My opponent is going to have to die. But does he have to kill me too? He is killing me. But he has a right to. I have never seen a greater opponent than him. I do not care who kills who now.”
What. Theeeeeeeeeeeeee. Hell.
It’s like a pep talk ghostwritten by Ra’s al Ghul.
Every rumor you heard about Harbaugh burning out the San Francisco locker room — even back when the 49ers were 3-1 — makes perfect sense, next to an anecdote like that. Imagine having to work with that guy every day. “I will be your alarm clock and wake you up early,” he said to a roomful of adults.
But then, we’re not talking about Harbaugh as a 49ers coach.
Imagine we’re talking about a college coach.
