Harbaugh insights from former neighbors
As the adrenaline of the Harbaugh hiring has finally worn off and we're left with a subpar basketball season and a mercurial hockey team -- I've found there is a dearth of content. In that vein (i.e. any news is worthy news), I thought I'd share this little tidbit I got at work yesterday:
My boss lives in the same area as Harbaugh used to in the Bay Area (hills west of 280 around Palo Alto). He runs in the CEO crowd down there (cocktail parties, 3 martini lunches at the Woodside pub, etc.). About 6 months ago, he was invited to a coktail party at Harbaugh's next door neighbors's house (someone he knows through this network). JH comes along to the party as well. What my boss notices is that he brings all of the 49ers rookies with him to the cocktail party -- you can't miss pro football players in that crowd. So he asks JH's neighbor: why does JH bring rookies to a cocktail party -- not the most obvious thing to do.
The reasoning is thus: When players are new to the league, JH wants to make sure they don't want to get into too much trouble. Rather than give them lectures about behavior, he just has them go with him to all his social functions so he can keep an eye on them. He'll do this until he's convinced they're not going to get into trouble and he's drilled into their head how to behave off the field. Obviously not foolproof (see: 49ers off field issues this year) but I thought it showed his dedication. He literally lives his team to the point that he takes them everywhere he goes. Feel a little sorry for his wife (hey honey, do you mind if I bring 7 guys with us on date night), but you have to love the all encompassing dedication to his craft.
January 20th, 2015 at 4:44 PM ^
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January 20th, 2015 at 5:34 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 5:37 PM ^
The leadership traits that "wear on NFL players" are traits that make a college coach great. It bodes well for Michigan that Harbaugh is too intense for NFL players. He isn't being asked to coach people who just signed multi-million dollar contracts and think they have odorless feces; he's being asked to make a difference in the lives of young people. In this case, he was using the "CEO crowd" as role models for rookies.
This is just more proof that Harbaugh is where he belongs.
January 20th, 2015 at 6:35 PM ^
This will fly with college kids a whole lot easier than with grown men.
January 20th, 2015 at 6:59 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 7:30 PM ^
for some of those stories.
January 20th, 2015 at 8:40 PM ^
This is what his son claimed on facebook.
January 20th, 2015 at 10:22 PM ^
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January 20th, 2015 at 10:11 PM ^
Frank Gore has had nothing but good things to say about Harbaugh:
""He's my best coach. I didn't enjoy here until we started winning. Since he's been here, I've been winning."
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24916168/frank-gore-on-har…
January 20th, 2015 at 9:42 PM ^
If he wore on the 49ers, they sure hid it well when he was let go. They gave him the game ball and overwhelmingly lamented his departure.
January 20th, 2015 at 4:45 PM ^
Not a bad idea. Show rookies how adults act in social situations. Leave the college shenanigans behind.
January 20th, 2015 at 4:47 PM ^
If the niners would have drafted Johnny Football. Would've taken cocktail parties to another level.
January 20th, 2015 at 4:48 PM ^
how that might bother a grown man.
January 20th, 2015 at 4:55 PM ^
They're not grown men. They're 22-year-olds.
January 20th, 2015 at 5:05 PM ^
If at 18 a person can fight then they are a man. War is the most serious and deadly activity a human being can do.
If we can send them to war then they are men. If not men then why do we send them in combat??
January 20th, 2015 at 5:12 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 5:39 PM ^
but they can go face something a billion times more physical and emotional taxing than anything we civilians face.
That's some sound logic.
January 20th, 2015 at 10:01 PM ^
January 21st, 2015 at 6:36 AM ^
I have it on good authority from a football coach that you're not a man until you're forty.
January 20th, 2015 at 5:15 PM ^
And don't forget the whole die for your country but can't buy alcohol thing! Go back under your rock.
January 20th, 2015 at 5:35 PM ^
Your response makes no sense.
January 20th, 2015 at 5:20 PM ^
Maybe it's the case that the attributes that make a person well-suited for infantry do not overlap precisely with the attributes that make them resent being dragged to cocktail parties?
January 20th, 2015 at 5:41 PM ^
mature enough to kill another human being, but not mature enough to drink.
It's an utterly insane logic that was developed by civilians who never gave the nature of war much thought.
January 20th, 2015 at 6:25 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 6:53 PM ^
Except for most of the people in infantry are either from the hood or Pigsknuckle, Arkansas... so I would say there is a lot of commonality between them and NFL rookies... except the rookies could run faster in high school than the poor SOBs catching bullets.
January 20th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ^
Can I please ask you not to say things like that. I know many folks in all brancehs to include some people that could potentially be "the poor SOBs catching bullets".
I have met many infantrymen that are brilliant folks and from affluent areas. What you said it just disrespectful on so many different levels. Go out to a VA and go talk to some of the people. Change your perspective and learn something.
January 21st, 2015 at 11:52 AM ^
Can I please ask you to... shut the fuck up. I've worn my nation's uniform. I've heard the crack of bullets whizzing past my head too.
I said that not to be disparaging but the fact of the matter is for kids with no other options out of the situations where they grew up in, that's where they go. Hell, when I was in, they temporarily waived the HS diploma requirement to enlist in the Army.
I suggest you change your fucked up perspective and when someone makes an observation based upon experience, you automatically translating it to a negative through whatever colored glasses you are wearing.
Come down off your ivory tower. Fuck you and fuck your post!
January 20th, 2015 at 6:02 PM ^
First, it's a maturity issue, mentally and emotionally. Some are more mature than others and make better decisions than others. This is the case whether you're talking about military, NFL, or corporate America.
Second, an 18-20 year old's body is not fully mature. I had a conversation with a US Navy pediatric ER doc in Hawaii once (didn't know the family, but our kids somehow started playing together, so we chatted). It seems the military is sending pediatric docs overseas to take care of the younger soldiers, as they've realized that their bodies are not fully mature and often need a different level of care and expertise than "regular" doctors can give. As a peds doc, he was deployed to the middle east and Afghanistan for that very reason.
Finally, my brother-in-law, a CAPT in the US Navy, will also tell you that the E-1 enlisted sailors really are just kids, for what it's worth.
Being physically able to go to war has nothing to do with whether or not someone is a "grown man" (whatever that ambiguous term really means).
January 20th, 2015 at 6:43 PM ^
Maybe we should not send anyone to war at an age less than that. I knew a drill instructor who got 18 year old "men" ready for Vietnam. He was a tuff Texan, but he said it was hard to maintain when he heard some of these boys crying, literally for their moms after lights out. Nothing against your comments, that is the law now, I just think the older you get the more you realize how young 18 really is, especially with something as final as war. Just because you are in a war doesnt mean you are a man, see 10-14 year olds carrying weapons in middle east and African conflicts, surely carrying a weapon in these wars does not make them men.
January 20th, 2015 at 8:14 PM ^
and destroys them. When I was 18 I thought I was a man, too. Then I reached 28, 38, 48, 58... Read any of the recent books about the experience of grunts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or go back to the Viet Nam War fiction--or to Band of Brothers, The Thin Red Line, etc., or to WWI poetry. Teenagers aren't men--they're valued by the military precisely because they can be used as mindless cannon fodder. If they survive, they do grow up faster than their peers. But only one in a hundred college-age guys can be counted a man by the standards of those who've lived far longer.
January 20th, 2015 at 11:18 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 8:51 PM ^
January 21st, 2015 at 6:20 AM ^
being a man and then there is being mature
January 20th, 2015 at 5:24 PM ^
they can take a bullet for our country, I think that makes you a grown man
January 20th, 2015 at 4:56 PM ^
So we'll see Harbaugh at Frat parties doing kegstands?
January 20th, 2015 at 5:01 PM ^
I hope he warns the hosts, 7-10 NFL rookies would obliterate the buffet.
January 20th, 2015 at 5:16 PM ^
not sure I'm buying this, either as a true description of Harbaugh's M.O., or as a good idea. You would pretty much have to move people into your house and go to the bathroom with them to make it work, and then it becomes. . . just a little patronizing, no? I'd say it's something more like rookies getting pretty lonely sometimes and just. . . being friendly toward them.
January 20th, 2015 at 5:20 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 9:04 PM ^
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January 20th, 2015 at 5:32 PM ^
Can you imagine Bo hauling around all the freshmen on the football team? Harbaugh in particular? That would have been a sight to behold!!
Here's a quote from another mgoblog post on Harbaugh's on behavior:
During his first two years in South Quad Harbaugh was directly involved in several assaults on fellow students. . . One of the most egregious examples of Harbaugh's lack of character is evidenced by his regular practice of throwing full containers of Dannon yogurt taken from the training table in the dorm's cafeteria out an open window at the end of the hall on the upper most floor of the building. When challenged by one of the students as to why he was tossing yogurt out of the window of the 8th floor of the building - only to have these containers explode on dented cars parked below - Gentleman Jim responded "$%#@ you, I am practicing my throwing arm".
In a more illuminating piece of journalism the SF Chronicle wrote "Harbaugh was arrested in November 2005 in Encinitas for driving under the influence after being pulled over for running a stop sign. At the time, Harbaugh said he "upset with myself and embarrassed for everyone around me." Harbaugh, who refused to take a field sobriety test, pled guilty to a lesser charge of reckless driving.
Maybe Harbaugh has decided he doesn't want his players to do the same things he did himself?
January 20th, 2015 at 9:08 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 5:37 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 5:57 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 6:01 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 6:24 PM ^
the new position descriptions in Brian's latest post. He wants guys to monitor curfews, player lifestyles and off-campus housing. Methinks Jim is a "my way or the highway" kind of guy. Will be interesting to see his first few disciplinary actions, which are inevitable. I admire Hoke's for the most part with the egregious exception of Gibbons.
January 20th, 2015 at 6:28 PM ^
than normal human beings.
Everything he does is directed at his team getting better.
January 20th, 2015 at 6:30 PM ^
They can all vote, drink alcohol in large quantities, open bank accounts, start businesses and die in foreign wars.
I'm not sure they want to be told how to behave in social settings by.....a head football coach.
I get the point about JH's dedication, desire to dole out TLC and potentially chronic control issues, but Christ, these "NFL rookies" aren't teenagers anymore.
I mean at that age, who's accountable? Jim Harbaugh or the rookie NFL football player? The correct answer is the rookie.
January 20th, 2015 at 9:18 PM ^
January 20th, 2015 at 10:01 PM ^