Chargers Are Back In San Diego, Reconnecting Jim Harbaugh To His Gritty Coaching Origins

SAN DIEGO — This is wherever it each started for Jim Harbaugh, this idyllic hilltop University of San Diego field pinch its sweeping views of nan metropolis and ocean, Spanish Renaissance architecture and courtyards lined pinch thenar trees.

Harbaugh had been an adjunct coach elsewhere, learning nan ropes arsenic an violative advisor astatine Western Kentucky and quarterbacks coach for nan Oakland Raiders, but this was his first chance to beryllium a caput coach. It launched a 2nd profession for nan longtime NFL quarterback, taking him to Stanford, nan San Francisco 49ers — wherever his squad fell conscionable short of a Lombardi Trophy — to a national title astatine Michigan, and now to nan Chargers, wherever he’s opening his 3rd season.

The Chargers person moved training campy to USD for Tuesday and Wednesday this week, reuniting Harbaugh pinch a spot legendary Raiders proprietor Al Davis advised him not to come.

“Awww, Jimmy, Jimmy, I thought you wanted to beryllium a pro coach,” Davis, sound dripping pinch disappointment, told him successful 2004 erstwhile he learned Harbaugh was leaving his Raiders gig.

“But Mr. Davis, you coached assemblage football,” Harbaugh countered.

“Yeah,” Davis said, “but that was astatine USC, not U-S-D.”

Harbaugh knows he made nan correct decision, and ne'er doubted it, moreover erstwhile he and protect coordinator Dave Adolph — different NFL fixture — had to rotation up their sleeves and scrub down nan cramped and filthy USD locker room themselves; moreover erstwhile he and his adjunct coaches routinely made hundreds of PB&J sandwiches to supply late-night snacks for their players, who don’t person scholarships astatine nan NCAA Division I FCS level; and moreover erstwhile he pushed himself truthful difficult astatine believe — he was nan caput coach, mind you — that he sewage sick each complete himself.

“He was very demanding of us,” recalled erstwhile Toreros linebacker Matt Gabbard, “but it wasn’t thing he didn’t request of himself.”

They still telephone it Harbaugh Hill, a steep ungraded roadworthy overlooking nan believe fields connected campus. Football players would plod up it arsenic portion of their training camp, and Harbaugh would tally pinch them and impulse them along. It bothered him that cipher could support gait pinch receiver Nick Garton, who besides excelled successful shot and way successful precocious school, and could breeze up nan people for illustration it was nothing.

“Isn’t anybody going to situation this guy?” Harbaugh said. “Finally, I said, ‘I’ll do it.’”

Jim Harbaugh smiles during a believe pinch nan University of San Diego successful November 2005.

(Lenny Ignelzi / Associated Press)

So he did, matching Garton stride for stride earlier losing his meal each complete himself. The coach didn’t extremity running, though.

“I vanished second,” he said, recalling nan section aft Chargers believe this week and intelligibly still proud of his accomplishment.

Harbaugh coached astatine USD for 3 seasons, starting successful 2004, and was 3 years removed from his playing career. He was 40 erstwhile he took nan occupation and still had thoughts of putting nan pads backmost on. He moreover looked into playing arena shot and entertained nan thought of playing for nan Los Angeles Avengers, but that thought only lasted a time aliases so. He really wanted to beryllium a coach, and brought on his dad, Jack Harbaugh, to oversee nan moving backs successful that first season.

Jim and Jack would carpool to field each time from their Coronado homes, begetter and boy talking plays, personnel, family and life.

“What I saw was passion,” said Jack Harbaugh, who spent six decades coaching precocious schoolhouse and assemblage football. “If I could usage 1 word, it’s Jim’s passion for nan game. He would coach arsenic if that was possibly nan past occupation he’d ever had.”

That resonated pinch nan players.

“When we saw coach Harbaugh travel successful and person that next-level intensity, you benignant of get chills moving down your spine,” protect backmost Phil Bretsch said. “Like, ‘Oh boy, this is going to beryllium different.’ But you’re fresh for it, right? We’re not location for immoderate different logic different than we emotion football.”

The turnaround was abrupt. Harbaugh inherited a historically mediocre programme and coached his squad to a 29-6 grounds successful 3 seasons. The 2006 squad went 11-1, won nan Pioneer League, and Harbaugh was a finalist for nan Eddie Robinson Award, presented to nan apical coach successful nan FCS.

One of his biggest accomplishments was luring Adolph retired of retirement. The protect master was almost 70 and was a turnaround creator pinch each sorts of NFL franchises — Cleveland, Kansas City, Raiders and Chargers — but successful his later years was nan superior caregiver for his ailing wife. Harbaugh asked and asked and asked, and yet sewage a yes erstwhile he helped put for in-home attraction for nan Adolphs for respective hours a day.

Coaching astatine this level was astir making sacrifices for nan emotion of nan game. There was nary schoolhouse money to provender nan quiet players aft their squad meetings, truthful Harbaugh and nan different coaches — fundamentally volunteers — shelled retired for tubs of peanut butter, vats of jelly and dozens of loaves of breadstuff each night.

“We were ever connected nan hunt for calories,” Bretsch said. “I deliberation I stayed live disconnected Carl’s Jr. 99-cent chickenhearted sandwiches for astir six months passim my career. We ever joked, ‘What if we would person had nan training array nan large programs had? What would we person been like?’”

But those teams had thing different. They had Harbaugh.

“We had a competitory advantage from a coaching standpoint each crippled we went into,” said moving backmost J.T. Rogan, who went connected to activity pinch Harbaugh astatine Stanford and Michigan. “I would mention to him arsenic my begetter successful football, but that would astir apt beryllium diminishing nan effect he’s had connected my life.”

It wasn’t conscionable astir Harbaugh’s shot mind aliases unwavering strength and enthusiasm. He had connections. When he took his squad up to play Menlo College, he had Jerry Rice present nan pregame talk. Steve Mariucci said to nan squad arsenic well. So did longtime assemblage hoops coach Tom Crean, Harbaugh’s brother-in-law.

Jim Harbaugh huddles pinch his teammates during a crippled betwixt nan San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos successful October 2000.

(Stephen Dunn / Getty Images)

When nan Toreros needed cold-weather clothing for a crippled astatine Dayton, Harbaugh cajoled nan Chargers, wherever he spent portion of his playing career, into donating immoderate of their mothballed gear.

“We sewage turtlenecks pinch nan Chargers insignia connected them,” Rogan recalled. “We’d person these jackets pinch a large Chargers lightning bolt, nan dark-blue worldly earlier nan baby-blue worldly was en vogue.”

For Harbaugh, nan occupation was part-coaching and portion “Let’s Make a Deal.”

When Saint Mary’s dropped its shot program, he called nan East Bay schoolhouse not only to enlistee players but to information up instrumentality that would different spell unused. He coiled up buying virtually everything nan programme had, penning a $10,000 cheque retired of his individual account.

“I sewage each nan believe pants, nan helmets, nan thigh boards, everything,” he said.

He rented a U-Haul and drove to Moraga to cod nan stuff. When Harbaugh was astir to caput out, nan Saint Mary’s coach asked 1 much question:

“You request goalposts?”

Harbaugh was each ears.

“He showed maine these year-old goalposts,” he said. “They were beautiful. I put them successful nan U-Haul and took them too.”

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh watches training campy astatine nan University of San Diego connected Tuesday.

(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

With nan motortruck loaded and arsenic he was preparing to propulsion out, Harbaugh sewage a telephone connected his cell. It was an unheralded USD backmost enlistee from Oakland named Josh Johnson. He was expected to beryllium astatine freshman predisposition but didn’t person a measurement to get from nan Bay Area down to San Diego.

Harbaugh was speedy connected his feet.

“He said, ‘My parents are moving and can’t return maine down there,’” Harbaugh said. “I said, ‘Tell you what, tin you beryllium fresh successful an hour?’ He said he could be, truthful I drove nan U-Haul complete to his spot and picked him up an hr later.”

The 2 spent nan adjacent 7 hours together, driving to USD. Even now, Harbaugh made clear he wasn’t bending nan rules.

“It wasn’t an other use for Josh Johnson,” he said. “I put him to work. He unloaded nan full truck.”

In his first practice, Johnson went from seventh connected nan backmost extent floor plan to second. He would spell connected to go 1 of nan top players successful nan history of nan program, starring nan Toreros to back-to-back Pioneer League championships. He group galore schoolhouse records, including his 2007 play successful which he threw 42 touchdown passes pinch 1 interception.

Johnson, now playing for nan Cincinnati Bengals, has played for 14 NFL franchises, immoderate much than once. That’s nan astir successful convention history for a quarterback. It’s an astounding emergence from a tiny, non-scholarship assemblage successful San Diego. An odyssey of an ascent.

Harbaugh, for one, tin relate.