Steve Schrader

Detroit Free Press

We wrote a few Jim Harbaugh stories this year, if you didn't notice.

The guy is crazy quotable -- sometimes with an emphasis on crazy. Here's a look back at 12 months of Harbaugh-isms:

• Football is the “last bastion of hope for toughness in America in men, in males,” Harbaugh said on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.” The comment got a thumbs-up from Rush Limbaugh.

• Drink more milk: As much as your belly will hold, kids, he said more than once. And make sure it’s “whole milk. Not the candy-ass 2%.”

But if you’re out of milk, it’s OK to substitute Gatorade on your cereal, if you can stomach it.

Son Jay, who shared the story in a video at U-M’s website, couldn’t: “This one time I was a kid, we didn’t have any milk for cereal. He put Gatorade in the cereal instead of milk. It was the weirdest thing I ever saw.

“I didn’t try it. For good reason. That’s not where Gatorade goes.”

Time for you to take the 'Harbaugh Breakfast Challenge'

• Take your vitamins:“I truly believe the No. 1 natural steroid is sleep and the No. 2 natural steroid is milk, whole milk, and three would be water,” Harbaugh said on his radio show. “Four would be steak. I take a vitamin every day — it’s called a steak.”

Harbaugh also said steak was also his favorite item on the traditional Thanksgiving menu.

• He believes in Coaches without Borders: “In my America, you’re allowed to cross the state borders. That’s the America I know,” he said when other coaches criticized his Summer Swarm football camps in SEC Country.

• The movie “American Sniper” was deemed controversial by U-M, and a planned campus showing was temporarily canceled.

But “Michigan Football will watch ‘American Sniper’!” Harbaugh tweeted. “Proud of Chris Kyle & Proud to be an American & if that offends anybody then so be it!”

• “That’s kind of the way the pickle squirted this year. I don’t see that happening going forward” — on flipping recruits for his first class.

• “Fans have a constitutional right to expect success and have high expectations.”

• “Just can’t get enough of Paul Harvey!” — via Twitter.

• Also via Twitter: “Thought of the day — What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive! — Sir Walter Scott.” It was an apparent jab at Ohio State, after former U-M recruit Mike Weber switched to OSU and then the guy who recruited him bolted for the NFL.

• “It’s like people forgot about shirts and skins. … Where I come from, you play shirts and skins. It was a game of shirts and skins. I didn’t take my shirt off and start running around. We were actually playing a game” — on the viral photo of him, pale and shirtless, playing Peru ball at his Prattville, Ala., camp.

• “Not striving to be creating any buzz. Just striving to coach the football team. Not trying to be popular or anything. Anyone who is popular is bound to be disliked. So just coaching football” — on the Harbaugh hype machine.

• “There’s a battle rhythm, a body clock that tells you it’s time for football. For me, it’s always I know when I get my first football dream. That’s my body clock telling me it’s time to compete. It’s like a bell at a boxing match, ding, ding. The bugler’s call at the Kentucky Derby” — on starting preseason practice.

• “The first day, tomorrow, you’re so excited. It’s like New Year’s. It’s like the start of the new year. It’s like your birthday, the first day of school. It’s all those things rolled into one. It’s like being reborn into football. Like coming out of a mother’s womb into football. You’re in a nice, warm, cozy place, and you’re reborn, you come out into chaos, lights and everybody looking at you. And it’s wonderful. ... Cleats on the cement walking over here. It’s the fresh-cut grass. The early morning, seeing the sun come up and know you’re going to be doing football all day. ... It’s very emotional” — at U-M media day.

• “But, just to let you know, we’re going into submarine tomorrow. You won’t see us for a while. You won’t hear from us. We’re going to be in a bunker mentality until we decide we’re not and we come up to the surface” — going radio silent at the start of camp.

• “It was an amazing experience to watch Mr. James Earl Jones do the voiceover piece. It must have been what it was like to watch Willie Mays take batting practice, back in that time” — on getting Jones to do narration for a Michigan football video.

U-M's Harbaugh loves Darth Vader: 'He's a jackhammer'

• “I’m not a food critic, merely a blunt instrument who only knows football” — touting a Paris restaurant, via Twitter.

• “As usual, the Cracker Barrel staff was amazing, and we had a great meal, and they treated us just like normal customers. … It was really good. Our guys were playing checkers and the little game with the triangle where you try to get it down to one golf tee. They had fun doing that. It was good. I got great pancakes and bacon. The best” — touting Cracker Barrel, a more American restaurant, after an impromptu team meal during the trip to Maryland.

The year in khakis

It’s the fabric of our lives, at least after Harbaugh was named Michigan coach:

• Harbaugh embraced his clothing choice in January: “I own other pants. It’s gotten to the point where I save so much time a day knowing that I don't have to stand in front of the closet, trying to decide what outfit to pick out. About 15-20 minutes a day — that adds up day after day.”

• Fox Sports 1 dressed a bus in khakis and sent it cross-country to promote its coverage of Michigan’s opener at Utah.

Fox also announced a Khaki Cam would follow Harbaugh at all times during the game.

• Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a proclamation urging his state’s citizens not to wear khakis during the Michigan-Ohio State game.

• Harbaugh donated some autographed khakis to Mitch Albom’s annual S.A.Y. Detroit Radiothon on WJR-AM (760), and they sold for $750 a pair.

“Half a dozen khaki pants,” Harbaugh said. “All right, let’s do it. That will free up space in my closet. ... You want me to sign them on the leg? The leg is good.”

U-M's Harbaugh helping Albom charity with khakis

U-M's Harbaugh spring break continues with Oakland A's

Adventures of Jim: Harbaugh visited Supreme Court

Jim Harbaugh mixes it up at Michelle Obama event

Where is Jim Harbaugh now? Peru (photos)