CHICAGO -- Jim Harbaugh spent his final weekend before Big Ten media days doing what Jim Harbaugh does -- garnering publicity. He played in the celebrity golf event at Lake Tahoe, televised by NBC.
He's a brilliant football coach, grouped among the best. But when it comes to drawing the spotlight, the man truly has no peer.
The Summer of Harbaugh included a tweet directed at Nick Saban ("Alabama broke NCAA rules ... ") that generated more than 34,000 likes and retweets; visits to satellite camps during which he wore Derek Jeter and Stephen Curry jerseys tucked into his khakis; and a rap video released last week in which he repeatedly screams his personal mantra, "Who's got it better than us?"
Clever Ohio State fans replied "[hashtag]42-13," the score of their 2015 victory over the Wolverines.
But perhaps even some Buckeyes enjoyed the spectacle.
"The cool people liked it," Harbaugh said Monday at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.
Harbaugh is hard not to like on occasions such as this.
He deserves to be ripped sometimes for his fashion choices (baseball cap with a suit), his occasional Trump-like narcissism (he said his kids told him before the celebrity golf tournament, "You're gonna win; you always win") and more serious stuff such as pulling scholarship offers to verbally committed players.
But Harbaugh remains the most compelling figure in the Big Ten. He's goofy enough to use the word "meritocracy," ask whether he's the one who invented it and look disappointed when told he did not.
And he's at his best when talking about the people he admires. That's a good trait.
On his tight end: "From day one, Jake Butt has been A-plus-plus as a player. It's a two-hour meeting, and he's on the edge of his seat, communicating and interpreting for younger guys. He's excited. He has pizzazz. He throws his uniform on. The hair on the back of his neck is standing up. He'll go to hit a sled, go through a blocking drill with just as much excitement as when we do the routes.
"Football's not fun. You don't play very many games. You're practicing, you're conditioning, it seems like year-round. When guys embrace the struggle, get joy from the rough, tough game, you know you have a true football player."
He also lavished praise on Jabrill Peppers, the elite and versatile defender from New Jersey who plays with a motor, Harbaugh said, fueled by "a lot of racial and other type of directive hate toward him. He's never let that get him down or put him down."
All-America cornerback Jourdan Lewis, he said, "has never had a disrespectful word for a professor, to a coach, to a teammate. He doesn't act like the big man on campus."
And Harbaugh spoke at length about new defensive coordinator Don Brown, who last worked at Boston College and replaces D.J. Durkin, now the head coach at Maryland.
"To hear the ways he has affected lives, the people who stop me to say, 'Tell Donnie I said hi!' " Harbaugh said, "it's on par with the way people talk to me about my dad."
Jack Harbaugh, 77, is jovial and low-key. His middle child is a wild card, perfectly willing to offend and break tradition. He'll show up at an alumni event only if there's an assurance that people submit questions in advance so they can be vetted.
Fortunately that was not a requirement Monday, and the result was gold.
"I try to surround myself with the most evolved human beings I can," Harbaugh said at one point.
He called kickoffs, which some deem too unsafe to keep in the game, "one of the great thrills in life."
He reminisced about sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley Field during his playing days with the Bears -- "I loved being in Chicago and loved being 25 years old" -- and said this of his team's goals, which include winning a national championship:
"If people aren't laughing at what you aspire to and what you dream about, then you probably haven't set your goals high enough."
Sports on 07/26/2016