JIM HARBAUGH : Quarterback’s Relationship With His Coach Goes Back to When He Was a Cocky 9-Year-Old

When Jim Harbaugh was 9, he was a cocky little gym rat hanging around the locker rooms and athletic fields at the University of Michigan, where his father, Jack, was a defensive coach under Bo Schembechler.

One day, Bo stepped into his office to find the youngster sitting in his chair, his feet propped up on Bo’s desk. Somewhat taken by surprise, Schembechler said: “Well, how are you doing today, Jim?”

To which the 9-year-old retorted: “I’m doing fine, Bo. How are you doing?”

Later, to Jim’s father, Bo said: “You know, I like that boy of yours. I like his attitude.”

Ten years later, when Jim Harbaugh was a little-recruited quarterback from Palo Alto High School and his father was an assistant coach at Stanford, Bo Schembechler offered Harbaugh a scholarship.

On New Year’s Day, when Harbaugh leads the Wolverines against Arizona State in the 73rd Rose Bowl game, it will be Bo’s last dividend for the faith he had in the young man he had learned to like so many years before.

“People ask me how I happened to come to Michigan,” Harbaugh said in an interview at the Industry Hills & Sheraton resort, where the team is staying. “I say, ‘When Bo called, that was it. I couldn’t say no to Bo.’ Arizona was the only school on the Coast that showed any interest in me, but I felt I had it in me to make it at a school like Michigan.

“I’ll always remember, though, that Michigan didn’t show an interest in me until after the first week in January. I didn’t hear from them until after the two quarterbacks Bo wanted, Dave Yarema and John Congemi, had commited to Michigan State and Pitt. I didn’t care, I knew Andy (Moeller) was going to Michigan and I thought it would be great to be back with my buddy.”

Moeller’s dad, Gary, like Harbaugh’s, was one of Bo’s assistants, and the two youngsters became pals when they were in grade school in Ann Arbor, Mich. Gary Moeller is still Schembechler’s defensive coordinator. Jack Harbaugh, after being fired as head coach at Western Michigan last month, recently joined the staff at Pittsburgh as an assistant to Mike Gottfried.

“As long as I can remember, Andy and I have been close friends. We came out here together to the Rose Bowl with our dads, and I remember walking through the lobby with Andy at the Huntington Sheraton (where Big Ten teams stayed until 1983), going out to practice and watching the guys work out, climbing in the mountains, getting in trouble together the way young kids do,” Harbaugh recalled. “Now, to come back here together to play in the Rose Bowl as captains of the Michigan football team, it’s more than we could ever dared dream for as kids.”

Harbaugh, the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player, is the offensive captain, and Moeller, the 220-pound all-Big Ten linebacker, is the defensive captain.

This is Harbaugh’s fifth trip to Pasadena and, like Bo, he is looking for a win to erase the memory of a string of losses. Schembechler’s record is 1-6 in Pasadena, and Harbaugh is 0-4, three as the son of an assistant coach and one as a freshman redshirt in 1983, when the Wolverines lost to UCLA, 24-14.

“I was 12 the first time we came out and I remember I felt terrible for Dad and the players on the team when USC won (14-6). That was Vince Evans’ big game. I knew all the players so well and I was down on the sidelines with them, so I knew how they were taking it. The next year, it was Warren Moon who got hot against us, and Washington won (27-20), but the worst was in ’79 when Charlie White scored the phantom touchdown that beat us, 17-10.”

White scored the decisive touchdown for USC from the three-yard-line, but replays showed that he did not have the football when he crossed the goal line.

Harbaugh, who turned 23 last Tuesday, has not always been in such good favor with Schembechler as he was when he was 9.

The lowest moment was probably Harbaugh’s first as a Michigan freshman. He was five minutes late for Bo’s first orientation meeting.

“I tried to sneak in, but there was no escaping Bo,” Harbaugh recalled. “He told me in no uncertain terms to get to the back of the room. He asked who I thought I was to show up late for a meeting like that, that I was the last guy he’d expect to do a thing like that, that he was going to call my dad and tell him what I’d done. He said with that attitude I’d never play a down for Michigan.

“I was sure at that moment that I never would get to play. I wanted to get out or hide. But if I had a dollar for every time Bo has told a player he’d never play, I would be rich by now.

“What made it so bad for me is that all those years growing up I had held Bo up on a pedestal. He was a larger- than-life figure. I idolized him. Since I’ve played for him, he has become a good friend, but I still realize I’m playing for a living legend. You can imagine how I felt that first day to get chewed out by somebody like that.”

Harbaugh didn’t play much for several years. He was redshirted his first season in 1982, one of 12 members of the current team who are now fifth- year seniors. In 1983, he threw only five passes, but when the 1984 season started, he was the first-string quarterback. He led the Wolverines to a 3-1 record before suffering a broken left arm against Michigan State that sidelined him the rest of the season.

Since returning in 1985, Harbaugh has been the nation’s most efficient college passer, ranking No. 1 in ’85 and No. 2 behind Heisman Trophy winner Vinny Testaverde this season. He threw for a Michigan single-season record of 2,557 yards this year, breaking his year-old record of 1,976.

In the past two years Harbaugh has quarterbacked the Wolverines, they are 21-2-1.

“Jim’s a special guy,” Schembechler said. “I’m very proud of that kid, very proud. He’s been a joy. I’m going to miss him a lot. He’s a great kid from a great family.

“He was an ornery little devil when I first knew him. He was always under foot, getting in everybody’s way. If I kicked him out of the locker room once, I kicked him out a dozen times, but he always came back. You could tell back then he had a great feeling for sports.

“Yeah, he’s special to me. But the season’s not over. Don’t get too high on him.”

One of Harbaugh’s most impressive statistics is his interception total. He lost only 6 of 227 passes in 1985 and 8 of 254 in ’86. In his final three games in 1985, he completed 41 of 50 passes for 9 touchdowns, with no interceptions.

Part of that success is due to Harbaugh’s ability to scramble, but when Bo sees his quarterback running around the backfield it’s not a happy sight for him.

“I know as soon as I start scrambling that I’ll hear about it when I get to the sidelines, but I’m the one alone back there with the football in my hand with a split-second decision to make. If the chances aren’t good for a completion, I don’t want to throw the ball. Especially, I don’t want an interception. Sometimes the only choice is to scramble or throw it away, and I can’t stand throwing the ball away and wasting a down.

“I run because I don’t want to get caught with the ball. That embarrasses me. I know what Bo will say, but if I worried about all the things Bo’s going to say, I’d be a mental case.”

Bo was the one who was nearly a mental case the week before the Ohio State game. In front of a room full of reporters, Harbaugh calmly predicted that Michigan would beat its traditional opponent.

When Schembechler, who wasn’t at the press conference, heard about it, he snarled: “He said that. Well, he’d better play better than he did last week if he expects to do it.”

“Last week” was when the Wolverines lost their only game, 20-17 to Minnesota.

Later, after Michigan had beaten Ohio State, 26-24, to win a share of the Big Ten championship and the Rose Bowl bid, Schembechler was smiling when he said: “I’d have said it myself if I’d had the guts.”

Harbaugh isn’t making any predictions for Thursday’s game with Arizona State.

“Once is enough,” he said. “I’m a thousand percent.

“I don’t need to make any predictions for this game. Just being here is beyond my wildest dreams. Now there’s just one dream left--to win the Rose Bowl game.”