Jim Harbaugh clears the air about his Michigan future in latest interview
By Keith Farner
Published:
Jim Harbaugh has had a tumultuous week, but it ended with him deciding to return to Michigan as coach. This, of course, only came after he interviewed with the Minnesota Vikings about their head coaching opening.
But once he decided to return to Ann Arbor, Michigan, he gave an interview to Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press.
“In a nutshell, I love Michigan,” he explained in a phone call Thursday evening. “I love every player. I love every family.”
Then why, he was asked, had he flown to Minneapolis to interview for the head coaching job with the Vikings?
“There was a tugging at me that I was once that close to a Super Bowl and I didn’t get it. Some NFL jobs came open. I was contacted by the (Minnesota) Vikings,” Harbaugh said. “For better or for worse, it was something I wanted to explore. I went in thinking, ‘I’m gonna have 100 percent conviction on this, and if they (Minnesota) have 100 percent conviction on this, then it’s something I’m gonna do.”
The possible move to Minnesota made since because Harbaugh had a connection with new Minnesota general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as a friend, and he has a 49-22-1 record in the NFL, including playoffs, including a Super Bowl appearance.
In the end, it didn’t work out.
“A first-class operation,” he said. “First-class people.” But there wasn’t an equal match of enthusiasm. And for a man whose catch phrase is “an enthusiasm unknown to mankind,” Albom wrote, well, that stuff matters.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
