49ers Harbaugh Football

Jim Harbaugh's not a normal football coach. He's a bit crazy. And to some, Harbaugh leaving the NFL for Michigan might seem insane. But, hey, if the khakis fit, right?

(AP photo)

ANN ARBOR -- When you get down to his core, Jim Harbaugh actually is a bit insane.

Those close to him, though, will tell you he's insane in the best way possible.

For instance, one of the activities at Harbaugh's recent bachelor party (he's been married twice) was laser tag. Everyone signed up for a name on an electronic scoresheet. He chose "Captain Comeback," an homage to his playing days as an NFL quarterback. And from there, everyone went to work.

When the fake smoke cleared and the game wrapped, it was revealed that Captain Comeback recorded more "kills" than anyone else in the party. Harbaugh won. Because he always wins. But upon further examination of where each person's shots came from, it became clear why he won in such a landslide.

"All his shots came against this 10-year-old kid," laughs Eric Bakhtiari, who played for Harbaugh in college and in the NFL with the 49ers. "He just sat there, hunting this 10-year-old kid so he could win.

"(He's crazy), but in the best way possible. I mean, hey, Steve Jobs was crazy, too."

Harbaugh's not normal. Far from it.

While coaching in San Diego, he ran hills with players until he puked on himself, just to prove a point. At another time early in his coaching tenure, he wanted to show his players that he could do 100 push-ups in a row without stopping.

At first, he could only manage about 30. His players never thought he'd make it. But every day, during stretching drills, Harbaugh was on the ground adding more push-ups to his total. He hit 60, then 80, then 100. But, of course, he didn't stop there.

He blew past 100, hit 110, and just to show off, started rotating between wide-gripped push-ups and narrow-gripped push-ups. The point? Nothing's impossible.

He wore strange shirts and gave odd motivational speeches, though they always seemed to work. Even now, he wears the same hat, shirt and pants combination virtually every time he's in public. He had professional wrestler Ric Flair -- yes, the Nature Boy -- give his team a pep talk before a playoff game.

He demands the impossible from those around him, and more often than not, he gets it.

He's insane.

But then again, so is Michigan football.

Michigan, Harbaugh's alma mater and the school that reportedly has offered him a contract that would make him the highest-paid college football coach in the country, is also -- in many good ways -- completely and totally crazy.

The program's fan base and support system demand a level of excellence that many believe is simply impossible within the confines of today's game. Michigan measures itself on a standard that was set some 30 years ago, by a coach in a completely different era, when arms races didn't exist and the big boys on the block could be counted on one hand.

Michigan wants it all. Michigan wants double-digit wins every season, a conference title on the mantle every December and the unflinching respect of everyone around it annually. It also wants every player to leave with a diploma, and doesn't want a single person within 10 feet of its program to cut a single corner on the way.

Michigan not only wants to have its cake and eat it, too, it wants to have that cake, and eat it while sitting on the moon.

Jim Harbaugh might be the most coveted football coach in America at the moment. Will he end up at Michigan?

The expectations at Michigan, viewed from the outside, are basic lunacy. And whether they want to admit it or not, those rigid expectations scare the living hell out of prospective coaching candidates every time this job comes open. At other places, you're allowed to have a down year or two if you're building something.

Not here.

At other places, you're allowed to cut a corner or two to get something done. You can bend a rule. You can take on a player who may be a massive academic risk. You've got leeway to breathe within an imperfect NCAA system.

Not here.

If you finish with 10 wins at Michigan, plenty of fans will spend years wondering what happened with the two you lost. If there are only 100,000 people inside the stadium on a Saturday, the crowd boos. This is a hard job, don't let anyone tell you any different.

Michigan demands the impossible from those inside its program. And if they can't deliver, then they're out. Ask Rich Rodriguez. Ask Brady Hoke.

And, yeah, ask Jim Harbaugh. Where do you think he got all of this from?

On paper, and in an insulated world, this is a marriage that makes perfect sense. A coach who refuses to budge on his principles and refuses to stop pushing and demanding working for a school that refuses to change, and refuses to accept anything less than excellence -- even if no one else believes it to be possible.

You and I don't live in that world.

But Harbaugh and Michigan do.

There are times in sport when a coach and a team line up perfectly. Look at East Lansing. Michigan State probably never believed it would find a coach with a larger green and white chip on his shoulder than the school's fan base sports every day. And then it found Mark Dantonio, whose shoulder chip is only slightly smaller than Mount Kilimanjaro. Look at Columbus. Would the Buckeyes ever be able to find another coach who eats, sleeps, drinks, dreams, breathes and obsesses about football the way Woody Hayes did?

Ever met Urban Meyer? The guy celebrated his first national title by locking himself in an isolated office so he could call recruits in the middle of the night.

For Michigan, right now, that guy is Harbaugh. And it's not even close.

Which is why the Wolverines have spent the past 17 days setting themselves up to do whatever it takes to bring this guy back to Ann Arbor. If the reported figure of six years and $48 million is true, then it's the right move. Even if the number is a bit off, whatever. Michigan should be doing anything and everything it can to get this guy. It shouldn't leave any doubt.

It should wait as long as it can possibly wait. It should throw as much money as it possibly can at Harbaugh and force him to look his alma mater in the eye and say "no." It should go all-in. It should do that to prove to its base, and to itself, that it's dead serious about getting this program back to where some believe it should be.

Where the crazy people believe it should be.

Michigan and Harbaugh are peanut butter and jelly, with a shot of Mountain Dew and Red Bull to wash it down. The duo makes sense.

But will it happen?

Harbaugh, at this point, has more options than just about any other modern football coach in history. One way or another, he's likely going to enter the 2015 football season as the highest-paid coach in his sport -- whether it be in the NFL or college. As he sits today, the number of options he'll actually end up with aren't even known. If he's fired due to his tenuous relationship with the 49ers, he'd jump to the front of the list of every NFL coaching vacancy.

Heck, if he's available, other NFL teams might actually fire their current coach just to have a shot at this guy. He's that coveted.

Just about every person close to Harbaugh that you talk with mentions the Super Bowl as his ultimate goal. Something he's talked about forever. But in the next breath, they also mention Michigan, a place and an idea he's talked about forever, too.

At first blush, the idea of Harbaugh leaving all those NFL options on the table for a run at the college level seems crazy. It seems unrealistic. Improbable.

Insane.

But, hey, if the weird-looking khakis fit, right?

San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh 25 Gallery: San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh

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