Kornacki: Hanlon's Influence on Harbaugh
1/6/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Jerry Hanlon remembers the social silent treatment he received from Jim Harbaugh after making a necessary coaching point some 30 years ago.
Hanlon was Harbaugh's quarterbacks coach at Michigan, and Hanlon had to step in when Harbaugh began riding his receivers for giving what he considered less than 100 percent effort.
"Jim was one of the most competitive kids I ever coached," said Hanlon, 83, who still resides in Ann Arbor. "If you were running a sprint or running a mile, he would compete with the best. But he never stopped pushing himself and everybody.
"He would throw a pass that ended up being 10 or 15 yards over the head of the receiver, and the guy would stop running for it. They'd say, 'I can't get to that one.' But in Jimmy's mind, you keep running and dive. He'd yell at these kids, and the receivers would get ticked off."
So, one day, Hanlon called Harbaugh, who was named the head coach of the Wolverines on Dec. 30, into his office and shut the door.
Hanlon recalled: "I said, 'No. 1, who is the quarterback on this team?' He said, 'I am.' I said, 'No. 2, who is the coach?' He said, 'You are.' I said, 'Do you understand that? I need you to let me do the coaching.' He said, 'Yes, I'll do that.'
"Jim thought I was too hard on him and did not speak to me socially for a long period of time. He would talk all the football that I wanted, but there was no social talk -- nothing about his parents, classes, nothing."
Their player-coach relationship didn't include friendship until the end of Harbaugh's senior year, when he was on his way to finishing third in the Heisman Trophy voting.
"At the end of 1986," said Hanlon, "he came in and closed the door to my office. Jim said, 'Coach, I don't like this. I understand it's my fault, and I do not want to keep on like this -- with us being unfriendly.' From that day on, we were very close. I took Jim on as another one of my adopted sons.
"Not only did Jim recognize what to do in football, but he learned how to handle players. I hope I helped him learn that. He said I did. And we've always been in touch. We have a really good relationship."
Harbaugh was the coach at the University of San Diego when he returned to Michigan in 2005 to help the Wolverines celebrate 125 years of football. He recalled in-depth a story about Hanlon being unable to tell him what kind of team the 1984 Wolverines would be. Hanlon explained that it would take decades to tell because it would take that long to see what kind of men, husbands and fathers they became.
Where life's lessons are concerned, Hanlon, the lone assistant to spend all 21 years working for Bo Schembechler at Michigan, had a never-ending impact on Harbaugh.
