AP
On Sunday, Jim and John Harbaugh will become the first pair of brothers to face off as coaches in any major American professional postseason game, let alone a Super Bowl.
As Jim's San Francisco 49ers meet John's Baltimore Ravens, their father Jack, a former college coach himself, is surely swimming in 'dad-of-the-year' novelty T-shirts.
But the story of the Harbaughs, like the stories of other football-coaching families—the Ryans, the Shanahans and even the Schottenheimers—points to a larger truth about this one unusual segment of sports. When if comes to being a football coach, nepotism seems to work.
Evidently Jim Harbaugh was a very very VERY good lad in an earlier incarnation, because he seems always to get exactly what he wants.Oh, he surely wanted the San Francisco 49ers to win Sunday because, well, they are his team.... more »
Jack Harbaugh, the patriarch of the NFL's reigning first family, was in coaching trouble back in the mid-1990s; his Western Kentucky program was skidding through repeated losing seasons, and Jack's future was tenuous. That's... more »
The Ravens coaching staff might be a victim of the front office's success and its ability to draft or sign good players. You never hear John Harbaugh mentioned as a possible NFL Coach of the Year. Brian Billick was never a... more »
At the University of San Diego, the small Catholic school where Jim Harbaugh presumably threw his first sideline tantrum as a head coach, the stories they tell are about intensity and motivation. Then, as now, Harbaugh had both... more »
This is Jim Harbaugh's best chance to humanize himself, show another dimension beyond the coaching brilliance and animated sideline temper. Maybe tell a quick, amusing story about growing up with his older brother, John. Or... more »
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