LOS ANGELES — If you just watch the national media, you would think that Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh is an icy character, albeit a quirky one. But his players see him much differently than public perception.
On Friday, senior wide receiver Roman Wilson shared that he wished that more people knew what kind of person his head coach actually is.
“I wish I would be asked more about how good of a guy Coach Harbaugh is — I feel like I’ve never ever really got asked that,” Wilson said. “Is Coach Harbaugh really like his players? And is he really like a team guy? I think he really is.“
So what does that mean? What does Harbaugh look like behind the scenes?
Well, despite turning 60 on December 23, the ninth-year Michigan football head coach acts more like his players’ age than his own.
“He’s like a kid for real. He be cracking jokes like trying to get us with Deez Nuts jokes. He is out there having a good time,” Wilson said. “He really is a player, like one of us deep down.
“I told them out there, I went to his house for Christmas, and I thought he would just be inside chilling on the couch. He was just outside working on the chicken coop, chickens following him around. His actual kids were following him, and then chickens were just following him, and he was working on the chicken coop. I was, like, man, this is the most Coach Harbaugh thing I’ve ever seen.”
Harbaugh has found a way to relate more to his team in recent years than when he first came to Ann Arbor. Before 2021, it was rare to hear players discuss how much they loved their head coach. He started making a concerted effort to relate more to the Wolverine players in 2017, but it didn’t really catch on until the culture changed following the COVID year.
Story originally appeared on Wolverines Wire
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