PROMISING MULTIPLE CHAMPIONSHIPS, JIM HARBAUGH IS WORTH A LONG LISTEN
His quotes come from everywhere, such as movies and Ted Lasso, but initially, he brings joy to a Chargers community that never has won a Super Bowl while asking not to “let the powder blues fool you"
Any man who quotes Morgan Freeman from “The Shawshank Redemption” and finds beauty in a Los Angeles rainstorm — “We are the storm!” — is worth a long listen. Jim Harbaugh is a container of joy and desire. He’s also someone not to be trusted in the collegiate game, but back in the NFL, why not see if he can finish one last play and win a Super Bowl?
“It was time. I said this the other day, there’s only so many sands left in the hourglass. I want another shot to simply be known as world champions and to win the Lombardi Trophy,” Harbaugh said. “That’s my mission. It needs to be multiple, multiple championships.”
Multiple means more than one, which is staggering when the Chargers never have won once. He agreed to five seasons at $16 million per and won’t win in the first year, when his team is $54 million over the salary cap and will have trouble fixing a defense in a conference of, well, multiple quarterbacks in Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and C.J. Stroud. Yet he has his own star in Justin Herbert, and considering he’s a fan of Ted Lasso and wants to rent an RV and park at a beach, let him keep rambling about many titles.
“We’re in one of the great cities there is. Los Angeles, southern California, they respect talent, effort and winning. And it needs to be multiple,” he said. “Multiple championships. We’re going to be humble and hungry, but that’s our goal. That’s our goal, is to treat people in a first-class manner and win multiple championships.”
And if he doesn’t? That’s a fair question. He’ll face Mahomes for at least another decade in the AFC West. Not long ago, he took a massive pay cut at Michigan to maintain his job, which he eventually converted into a 15-0 season and a national championship. At 60, he has been out of the NFL for nine years and left an image of a rabble-rouser who couldn’t survive in San Francisco with general manager Trent Baalke. How interesting his immediate boss, president of football operations John Spanos, didn’t say whether Harbaugh or new GM Joe Hortiz would own the final word on talent. “It’s OK to have a disagreement and difference of opinion on a player, but you have to be able to work through that together,” Spanos said. “If you’re ever in a situation where you’re having to look up in the contract who has final say here, you’ve got much bigger problems on your hands.”
But Harbaugh has had those problems before, which chased him out of the league only months after he almost beat brother John in Super Bowl XLVII. He had issues at Michigan, telling the administrators he wouldn’t pursue another pro job and ignoring them to the end. He ultimately fled the Big Ten because a commissioner suspended him three games for signal-stealing after the NCAA suspended him three games for dirty COVID-19 recruiting. Let’s be real about Harbaugh. He finally won last month but not without massive complications. He’s taking over a 5-12 team.
For now, L.A. sports fans who’ve ignored the Chargers — Dodgers and Lakers first, with Rams leading NFL talk, then everyone else fends for backup play — must like his magnetism. “It’s been about a week now and in this very short period of time, you’ve electrified this city and this fan base,” owner Dean Spanos said to Harbaugh. “Our fans deserve a day like this. I am so incredibly happy for them.”
When the team played a welcome video at YouTube Theater, inside SoFi Stadium, Harbaugh said “the little hairs on my arm stood up.” The question is whether he can win with soft uniforms. “A tough team, a resilient team, a relentless team, a physical team — is what we aspire to be. Don't let the powder blues fool you,” he said, adding this from Hollywood: “Excited. If I could describe it to you, it would be like Morgan Freeman in ‘The Shawshank Redemption.’ I can’t sit still or hold a thought in my head, what a free man would feel before a long journey. I just want to make it across the border and shake my friend’s hand. That’s how I feel.”
And Herbert? “The thing’s that’s jumping out is just this enormous talent,” he said. “Let’s see if I’m man enough, a good enough coach so that all his hard work can be realized. I want to work really hard so his hard work can be realized. I’m waking up really early in the morning and thinking I have to bring my A-game in every sense.”
He also used his phrase, “Enthusiasm unknown to mankind.” He said his “name should be Lucky.” He referred to his players as “mighty men.” But then he provided a snapshot into his life, after so many years of coaching and playing. “Some people say, ‘Have a great day.’ To me, that leaves a chance,” he said.
“Let’s make it a great day!”
He’ll always try. Remember, he is the storm for now. At least until early September, when the Chiefs and his brother’s Ravens encompass three of his first 17 games in a league without compromise, as he knows.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.