ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Jim Harbaugh is yelling now. At the top of his lungs, actually.
The first minutes of an interview with the Michigan native son returning home have been mostly small talk. But if you really want to get the new coach going, just ask him about the old man.
"I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING YOU LITTLE SON OF A BITCH! YOU COCKY SON OF A BITCH COMING INTO MY MEETING 10 MINUTES LATE! YOU WILL NEVER PLAY A DOWN OF FOOTBALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, NOT WHILE I'M HERE. YOU GOT IT?"
And, yes, Harbaugh got it. Thirty-three years ago he got it. The admonishment of Harbaugh from Bo Schembechler recounted above, resonates now the same as it did in 1982. A kid whose dad had coached for Bo, who went to high school part of his youth in Ann Arbor, was dead to the old man that day.
All it took was being late to his first meeting as a Wolverine. Ten minutes might as well been 10 hours.
It didn't matter that lifelong friend Jim Minick blew a muffler and was late driving him to the facility. Bo didn't give a flip that neither of them were wearing a watch, or the horror they experienced driving up Main Street seeing a bank clock click to 4:05 for a 4:00 meeting.
Jim Harbaugh still has nightmares about it.
"There's a deep lasting scar there," he said this week from his office where a picture of Schembechler literally looks down on him. "It's not even a scar. It's a broken bone with a rod stuck in it. It's like a broken femur."
That's how much Michigan's new coach is disturbed by disappointing his old coach, gone now almost nine years. In that time Harbaugh has transformed himself from plucky NFL quarterback to a 51-year-old gold standard of coaching. In that time, it's also almost hard to notice Schembechler has left.
"He's not perfect," Bo's son Shemy said of Harbaugh, "but he's the closest thing we have around here."
Michigan nailed it with Harbaugh. They know that around here. After watching the program languish for the last seven years under Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke, any other replacement would have been a disappointment.
They beat out the power and glory of the NFL by offering a rebuild. That and a triumphant trip back to his roots. But renovations are what Harbaugh does best. Who knew the University of San Diego had a football team? Stanford was a Pac-12 also-ran. The 49ers had eight losing season in a row before Harbaugh arrived.
The facilities are bigger and better than what Harbaugh remembered. Bo's old office -- the one they sealed off for a time following his death in November 2006 -- is occupied by Minick, now the director of football operations. There's a statue out front of Schembechler Hall of the legendary coach, one that Harbaugh practically salutes.
"I love that statue," he said. "I walk in, walk out. I look at it every day."
How many schools have a "Wall of Wins," 915 footballs in a giant display painted with the score of every Michigan victory in history? How many schools have a football from 1903, from the only game Michigan gave up points that season? Aside from that 6-6 tie with Minnesota, Michigan outscored everyone else 565-0.
None of the cutting-edge, interactive displays make reference to Harbaugh as a coach. Not yet. Not when he hasn't worked a game from the sidelines at the school that gave him his college identity, his professional prep -- and now -- a ticket back to where it began. Entering the 137th year of Michigan football, Harbaugh is in Year 1, as a coach.
In what may be his most comprehensive interview since taking the job in late December, Harbaugh bared part of his soul. This is home, a place he conceivably could retire at -- a place where the toughness groove was carved into his psyche. Thanks, Bo.
Love is a strange way to put it when recalling that early trauma from 1982. Harbaugh tried to sneak in a back door to that first meeting. An assistant coach made him walk the walk of shame -- in the front where Bo could see him.
Didn't have a clock? "I'LL CLOCK YOU RIGHT IN THE HEAD? GO SIT DOWN."
And for what seeming like forever, Harbaugh did. It would be fair to say Bo buried him after his misdeed. Schembechler would yell at assistants who dared even to speak to him at practice.
"DON'T TALK TO HIM. DON'T YOU EVER TALK TO HIM," Harbaugh recalled.
It took a while. Actually, it took until the 1983 season before Harbaugh even played. His only currency was diligence. He moved up the depth chart. After an injury to starter Steve Smith in 1983 Rose Bowl, Harbaugh suddenly became the backup and was told by Schembechler to warm up.
"He was thinking about putting me in," Harbaugh thought. "He must think I'm OK."
Except that he didn't. That '82 season ended without Harbaugh seeing the field.
"I remember thinking, 'I'll never play a down of football here,'" he recalled.
As you know by now, Harbaugh eventually did see the field. He was Michigan's first 300-yard passer. His career efficiency number was tops for 12 years in the NCAA record books. A Big Ten MVP, he was third in the 1986 Heisman voting.
The dreams, though, continued. About a Spanish class he didn't attend all semester. There's a test. He doesn't know a word of Spanish.
"Bo learned me good, never to be late for a meeting or practice," he said.
And the coach won a few games here, setting the standard for what Harbaugh is inheriting.
"If Michigan is looking for someone to walk up to Urban [Meyer] in pregame and punch him in the nose," Ron Lynn said, "they got the right guy -- literally and figuratively."
Lynn is Stanford’s 70-year-old player personnel director hired by Harbaugh at the school in 2008. He's seen up close what is about to happen here.
These first Harbaugh practices have been full go. Instructions were that quarterbacks -- even in Saturday's spring game -- were tackled all the way to the ground. That is almost unheard of. Anywhere.
"I could sit there and coach off the tape or coach on the field about getting back real quick on your drop," Harbaugh said of his quarterbacks, "but nothing drives that home like it's real, now."
The spring game was his biggest public appearance since taking the job. The crowd of 60,000 at the Big House was the largest in recent memory. They wanted to see him more than the remnants of a 5-7 team trying to replace an average starting quarterback (Devin Gardner). In the run-up, Harbaugh just kind of let it slip that Saturday marks his first visit to the Big House since 1987. The NFL was on strike during his rookie year.
Who knew? Part of the Harbaugh charm is that he is hard to nail down. The coach known for his dress slacks (khakis) casually slipped in a chaw during the interview.
Harbaugh also kind of boasted he's stripped down the weight room to a more spartan look. Upon arriving, he was repulsed by walls filled with pictures and inspirational quotes.
"It was shiny, like somebody from Chicago came in [from a ] P.R. firm."
Now the weight room is, well, mostly weights surrounded by white cinder block walls.
"This isn't a slide show," he said. "This is work."
Slowly, the young(er) man is channeling the old man. Jim's dad, Jack, worked seven years here (1973-79) as Bo's defensive backs coach. In the latter part of his NFL career, Jim shuttled back and forth between the Colts and Western Kentucky. There, he was a volunteer coach for his father who eventually won a Division I-AA title.
"[Bo] literally put a roof over our heads, food on our table -- hiring my dad," Jim Harbaugh said.
He's old school enough to have a picture centered above his desk of Bo yelling something to him during a Rose Bowl. ("He's not yelling at me, he's giving me a play.") Minick is a former Marine colonel, a Middle East veteran, who has spoken to Harbaugh teams in the past.
Harbaugh trusted his instincts enough to hire Jedd Fisch without a prior relationship. The Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator was brought in to oversee the passing game and coach quarterbacks.
They quickly lined up a quarterback stockpile that includes Houston transfer John O'Korn (eligible next year) and Iowa graduate transfer Jake Rudock. Recruits are already being sent postcards that detail the Wolverines' QB lineage from Benny Friedman (1924-26) to Denard Robinson (2009-2012) with Tom Brady in the middle.
Harbaugh has been a Twitter junkie since taking over -- all the while knowing the recruiting impact. There was love for East Bay rapper G-Eazy. He adores Judge Judy -- acknowledging with a tweet her contract extension through 2020 (at $43 million per).
"I love watching her on TV," he said. "If we could just get her on the Supreme Court then we'd really be in a pear tree as a country."
A pear tree? Half the time Harbaugh is a child wrapped in an enigma.
Cracker Barrel learned about his affection for the country-themed restaurants and its stockpile of Andy Griffith and Kung Fu DVDs. They sent him a rocking chair inscribed with his name.
"I have a deep abiding love for Cracker Barrel," he said. "Why would I want to eat somewhere else?"
"He loves birthdays, stuff like that," Fisch said. "I told him, 'I'll give you a good anniversary.'"
In a tweet this week, Fisch reminded the world that 12 years ago Thursday, he suffered an aortic aneurysm while running. Doctors later told him he had a 30 percent chance of paralysis, 30 percent chance of kidney failure and 40 percent chance of death.
"I managed to survive all three," Fisch said.
"There's something special about him," Harbaugh said.
Michigan's coach is a notorious grinder. While at Stanford, Harbaugh noticed Fisch's prowess in the NFL with Baltimore, Denver, Minnesota and Seattle. Together at Michigan, they spent nine days together in a private plane scouring the country for the first Harbaugh recruiting class that finished 38th nationally according to 247Sports.
"It's like being dipped in magic waters again," Harbaugh said of recruiting.
All of it leads to two conclusions about Michigan's new coach: 1) There are only a handful of men who could take it all in at Michigan, as well as take it all over. 2) Harbaugh really didn't have to do this. His NFL career was just starting when he decided to come back to his alma mater.
"My dad, my wife Sarah and Bo," Harbaugh said. "Those three people are the secret to my success. I've done exactly what they told me, exactly how they told me to do it."
But when he prayed about what may be the biggest coaching decision of his life, "I think Bo was talking to me again."
Does he feel his presence here?
"There certainly are a lot of reminders," Harbaugh said.
