By Daniel Popper, Daniel Brown, Michael Silver, Matt Barrows, Nick Baumgardner and Austin Meek

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Jim Harbaugh’s life plan has always been pretty simple.

He detailed it succinctly in February 2024 while standing on a theater stage inside SoFi Stadium. That day, Harbaugh was introduced as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, a team he had quarterbacked in the twilight seasons of his 14-year NFL playing career. Harbaugh was reminiscing about his playing days in San Diego, and he provided a window into his mentality.

“I’m going to play as long as I can,” Harbaugh remembers thinking, “then coach, then die.”

Harbaugh played until he was 38 years old, from Palo Alto High School to the University of Michigan to the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens, Chargers and, in 2001, the Carolina Panthers. He transitioned into Phase 2 right away. In 2002, he joined the Oakland Raiders staff as Al Davis’ quarterbacks coach. It was Harbaugh’s first coaching job. He made $50,000 a year. Harbaugh spent two years with the Raiders, whom the Chargers face in Las Vegas on Monday night. He compared his Raiders years to “working on a master’s degree or a PhD” in football.

Harbaugh’s coaching career is now in its 24th season. As he always hoped, his life has been devoted to football. The plan is simple to speak. The process of living out that plan has been anything but.

That is because Harbaugh is one of one, a unique and authentic character who has left a mountain of unique and authentic stories in his wake.

Here are some of those stories.

‘I was wetting my pants … Jim was just laughing at them’

If the whole football thing hadn’t worked out, Harbaugh would have fit well with the rugged NBA of the 1990s. He averaged about 20 points and 10 rebounds and flashed his “Bad Boy” potential as a high school hoopster willing to fight an entire opposing crowd.

Consider the melee at a road game in 1982, when tensions ran high from the moment Palo Alto High arrived. A menacing throng at Santa Clara High gave Harbaugh and company a hostile welcome as players stepped out of the team bus.

David Feldman, a prep teammate of Harbaugh’s who grew up to become an ESPN broadcaster, remembers the reception well.

“I was wetting my pants,” he said, “and Jim was just laughing at them.”

Soon after tipoff, there were so many cheap shots and hard fouls that Jack Harbaugh — Jim’s father and Stanford’s defensive coordinator at the time — approached the opposing coach with a warning: Get this under control or you’re going to have a problem.

But things continued to unravel. And when a blindside elbow knocked a Palo Alto player to the hardwood, the player sprang up ready to throw haymakers. From there, it was on. Fans ran down from the stands eager to join the saloon-style brawl, including a quartet of angry strangers making a beeline for Jim Harbaugh.

“Just mayhem,’’ Harbaugh told me in 2012. “I remember being backed into the wall on the baseline. There were four people there — not players, but people who had come out of the stands. They were all coming at me (with raised fists). And I’m squared up getting ready to defend myself and throw.”

But Jack Harbaugh, as promised, was at the ready.

“My dad comes in — whoosh! — just like that and cleared everybody out like a wrecking ball,’’ Jim said. “It was like a superhero moment. Jack Harbaugh, legendary status.” — Daniel Brown, staff writer / editor

‘Mike Tyson came roaring out’

A few hours remained before the ball would drop at Times Square, but across the country, as 1995’s last gasp played out in a since-demolished stadium, Jim Harbaugh was getting a jump start on the happiest new year of them all.

Harbaugh, at 32, had found new life with the Indianapolis Colts after some tumultuous years with the Chicago Bears and was in the process of reinventing himself as “Captain Comeback.” Having just quarterbacked the underdog Colts to a first-round playoff upset of the San Diego Chargers, Harbaugh couldn’t stop smiling when I saw him after the game in the visitors’ locker room at Qualcomm Stadium.

“I’ve never had so much fun,” Harbaugh said. “Good stuff like this never happens to me. I’m just so lucky to be able to play football, and I’m enjoying every moment.”

Jim Harbaugh built his “Captain Comeback” image while with the Indianapolis Colts. (Jamie Squire / Allsport / Getty Images)

Two weeks later, after another shocking road playoff upset (over the Kansas City Chiefs), I traveled to Pittsburgh for Sports Illustrated and saw Captain Comeback add to his legend. Trailing the favored Steelers by four points in the final minutes of the AFC Championship Game, Harbaugh habitually bought time by scrambling away from defenders, fired a clutch fourth-down completion, dislocated the index finger on his throwing hand, popped it back into place between plays and reached the Pittsburgh 29-yard-line with six seconds to go. He then unleashed a glorious Hail Mary that hung between three Steelers defenders — and came within inches of ending up in the hands of Colts receiver Aaron Bailey.

The storybook ending didn’t quite happen, but Harbaugh’s defiant grin remained. Afterward, citing a recent heavyweight title matchup between an indomitable champion and an overmatched opponent, Harbaugh lauded the way his teammates had silenced their skeptics by taking the fight to the home team: “A lot of people expected Peter McNeeley,” he said proudly. “But Mike Tyson came roaring out of the locker room.” — Michael Silver, NFL senior writer

‘We got laaaaaahts of peanut butter’

My first real interaction with Jim Harbaugh came during his first year coaching at Stanford. His brother-in-law, Tom Crean, had become a huge advocate for my recruiting book, “Meat Market,” that had just been published. Crean was the basketball coach at Marquette at the time and reached out to me through a colleague of mine at ESPN, Pat Forde. Crean ended up helping me promote the book even more than the publisher did.

At one point, he suggested I go up to Stanford and spend some time with Jim and his staff. I set it up with someone I think Tom connected me to at Stanford.

I got up there for spring ball. When I walked into the staff room, Jim didn’t seem to recall that I was coming. Or know who I was. After a few minutes of me explaining my visit, Harbaugh had this look on his face. It’s that same expression that some of his co-workers later told me they’ve referred to as the “Shark” — this kind of blank stare with his mouth slightly agape.

I suspect because he heard that Tom had told me to come, Jim tried to be hospitable. He walked me over to their kitchenette area and asked if I like peanut butter. (I do.)

“We got laaaaaahts of peanut butter,” he said, opening up a cabinet where they had some Costco-sized vats of it. He motioned over to a few loaves of white bread.

“Make as much as you like.”

I think that might’ve been the most we spoke in the two days I was up there.  — Bruce Feldman, national college football insider

‘He just saved my life’

Some vintage Harbaugh moments came at the Holiday Inn in Boardman, Ohio, in 2011, Harbaugh’s first year with the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers were staying there — it’s right outside the team owners’ hometown of Youngstown — between games in Cincinnati and Philadelphia.

The area wasn’t exactly replete with resources. Harbaugh even held a walk-through practice in the hotel’s parking lot, making sure to have the team buses help form a barrier between the team and any nosy citizens. Harbaugh, always, is in constant fear of enemy spies learning his plays and plans.

It was decidedly un-fancy and Harbaugh loved it.

“That big slab of cement even had lines and tall trees around it,” he gushed at the time. “That was one of the finer walk-through spots I’ve been associated with.”

The real action came during a team meal held in one of the hotel’s crowded conference rooms. Steak was on the menu and guard Adam Snyder started choking on a piece.

“It’s happened before where it just goes down the wrong pipe,” Snyder recalled years later. “And panic sets in real quick. And when you’re panicking, you’re not breathing. There was something lodged in my throat. I couldn’t even drink water.”

Harbaugh was seated and in mid-conversation on the other side of the conference room.

He saw the commotion and immediately popped up and began making his way to his choking guard, pushing through groups of people and knocking aside tables like a Secret Service agent rushing to aid the president.

The other offensive linemen had risen to try to help Snyder, but Harbaugh pushed through them, too. Then he began beating on the 300-pound lineman’s back.

“And it’s like — boom! — he punches him in the back so hard you could hear it,” tackle Joe Staley said.

Jim Harbaugh is a good guy to have around in an emergency. (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)

Said Snyder: “He was just smacking the heck out of me, just smashing my back. At one point, he picked me up and it was like — blewp! — it went down (my throat). And it was, ‘Oh my God! He just saved my life!’”

And as soon as the event was over? Harbaugh calmly walked back to where he was sitting and finished his meal, like it was something that happened every day.

“He pushed through guys to get to Adam and then he literally saved his life,” center Daniel Kilgore said. “And then he just went back to his conversation.” — Matt Barrows, 49ers beat writer

‘Is Jim Kelly in town?’

Harbaugh once spoke to the San Jose State football team, which practices a few miles from the 49ers’ facility. The college stadium is near my home, so I rushed over to get some offseason quotes. When I got there, I saw Harbaugh had a massive gash across his forehead.

I couldn’t resist.

“Is Jim Kelly in town?” I asked, a reference to the former Buffalo Bills quarterback whom Harbaugh once punched — breaking his hand in the process — during a pregame production meeting after Kelly, then in broadcasting, had questioned his toughness on a pregame show.

“You’re not the first person to say that this morning,” Harbaugh replied. — Barrows

No sleep needed in Rome

I was actually on Harbaugh’s flight to Italy when he took Michigan to Rome in 2017.

Michigan flew commercial and most of the team was on the one direct flight from Detroit, which got to Rome at around 8 a.m. local time. If Harbaugh wasn’t the last person to board, he was in the final five. I walked off the 10-hour flight, six hours into a new time zone, barely able to stand. I don’t know if Harbaugh slept more than a few minutes. Though when I saw him in the customs line, he looked exactly the same as he always does. His cap was straight, his shirt was tucked, his lip was packed and he was somehow effortlessly hauling the luggage of his entire family as if the previous 10 hours hadn’t happened.

The players were exhausted. Harbaugh was invigorated. When he saw me, he didn’t really say hello as much as he immediately went into a comment about something random I’d said on the radio he agreed with several weeks prior. Then, almost without blinking, he rounded up his family (toddler-heavy back then) and pulled up one of those side ropes toward the outside of the customs line. He told the whole crew to follow him and wandered off in search those lines that let people with kids through first. If that didn’t exist, he’d make his own.

Waiting isn’t his thing.

There’s no time — or need — to sleep when you are Jim Harbaugh on a trip to Italy with the Michigan football team that includes a meeting with the pope. (L’Osservatore Romano / Pool Photo via Associated Press)

Nobody from the team went to a hotel after we landed. Harbaugh, his coaches and players immediately got on shuttles and drove to Villa Borghese — almost the direct middle of Rome — to eat in the park before spending the entire rest of that day walking the streets of the city. Still on zero sleep. He never slowed down. The players did! I did! He did not. Not even after tipping a street musician on a park bridge who had absolutely no idea who he was.

Apart from getting to sit near the pope, Harbaugh’s celebrity was irrelevant in Italy. Most of the randoms we met on the street thought Michigan was some sort of gigantic high school soccer team. Harbaugh loved it. I’ve never seen a person gain more energy from those in his orbit the way he does. He played paintball with the team over there — at nearly 55 years old — for probably four hours. If he limped the rest of the week, it was in private. I don’t know if he slept that entire trip. Not sure he needed it.

People think he’s a gimmick. He’s not. He’s easily one of the most authentic (for good and bad) people I’ve ever met. — Nick Baumgardner, NFL Draft analyst

‘Those are pretty expensive pants’

In 2021, Michigan was playing at Penn State on a cold, windy November day. An important detail is that, by that time, Harbaugh had stopped wearing Walmart khakis and switched to blue athleisure pants from Lululemon, which are significantly nicer and more expensive but apparently not flame-resistant. The gist of the story is that Harbaugh was so engrossed in the game that he stood too close to a space heater and caught his pants on fire. Daylen Baldwin, one of Michigan’s wide receivers, was the first person to notice. Harbaugh was able to extinguish the flames, but not before they burned through the outer layer of his pants.

When he recounted the incident to a local TV station, Harbaugh said Baldwin was so nonchalant about the flaming pants that it took him a moment to realize what was happening.

“Maybe a little coaching point to Daylen Baldwin: If somebody’s on fire, man, (be) like, ‘Hey, Coach!’” Harbaugh said. “Maybe just grab me, get me out of the way or something. Be a little more emphatic about the fact that somebody’s on fire.”

‘Coach, you’re on fire!’ Jim Harbaugh burned his pants thanks to a space heater on Michigan’s sideline at Penn State.

He told me he is keeping them to possibly make them shorts. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/OOkYlADo9n

— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) November 15, 2021

Harbaugh said he planned to keep the pants, cut off the legs and convert them into shorts.

“Those are pretty expensive pants, those Lululemons,” he said. — Austin Meek, Michigan beat writer

‘Alas, I did not go to law school’

It’s impossible to talk about Harbaugh’s final season at Michigan without mentioning his battles with the NCAA and the Big Ten. Michigan was being investigated for hosting recruits on campus during the COVID-19 dead period and the school imposed a three-game suspension on Harbaugh to open the season. The suspension turned into a weekly game of “Where’s Jim Harbaugh now?” He mowed his lawn, went to McDonald’s, worked the chains for his son’s youth football team and attended a funeral for one of his former players at Stanford.

There was no levity to the second suspension, handed down by the Big Ten in response to the Connor Stalions sign-stealing investigation, which eventually led to a 10-year show-cause penalty for Harbaugh on top of an earlier four-year show-cause penalty. Michigan went to court seeking a temporary restraining order that would have allowed Harbaugh to coach while the school challenged the suspension. Right up to kickoff of Michigan’s next game against Penn State, the school was hoping a judge would intervene on Harbaugh’s behalf. Instead, the judge scheduled a hearing for the following week. For a moment, it appeared that Harbaugh might end up on the witness stand in a Washtenaw County courtroom, testifying about why the Big Ten’s suspension was misguided.

“I’m not an attorney, but I always wanted to be,” Harbaugh said. “I watched a lot of shows, watched ‘Judge Judy.’ I always felt like it would be cool to get up there and thunder away at a jury like Tom Cruise in ‘A Few Good Men’ or be a judge like Judge Judy. Alas, I did not go to law school.”

Harbaugh’s moment in court never happened. Michigan dropped its legal challenge, and Harbaugh missed the final three regular-season games before returning for Michigan’s postseason run. — Meek

‘Multiple championships’

Covering Jim Harbaugh is a fascinating experience. Every day presents an opportunity to observe or uncover something as outrageous as it is meaningful.

And that is an important point to remember with Harbaugh: No matter how silly it may seem in the moment, every action and every word has a purpose.

“Multiple championships,” Harbaugh said at his introductory news conference last year. “We’re going to be humble and hungry, but that’s our goal.”

When he first moved back to Southern California in the early months of 2024, Harbaugh lived in an RV alongside offensive coordinator Greg Roman at the Waterfront RV Park in Huntington Beach. He was channeling Jim Rockford, one of his favorite television characters from the 1970s show “The Rockford Files.” Harbaugh is an avid consumer of TV and movies. During his playing days, he guest-starred on the sitcom “Saved By The Bell” as Screech’s cousin.

Jim Harbaugh’s earliest Chargers days included him living in an RV and heading to Home Depot to buy a Shop-Vac. (Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)

On the day before he was introduced as Chargers head coach, Harbaugh drove to Home Depot with Ben Herbert, the team’s executive director of player performance, and bought a Shop-Vac. Harbaugh and Herbert used that Shop-Vac to vacuum out the weight room at the Chargers’ former facility in Costa Mesa.

When the Chargers got on the practice field in spring of 2024, players were shocked to see Harbaugh, wearing black Jordan cleats, participating in strength and conditioning drills. “You got to be on your stuff because coach is doing it right there with you,” safety Alohi Gilman told me last season.

Harbaugh continued this through training camp, when the strength and conditioning drills were held at the end of the practice. Harbaugh calls these “fourth-quarter finishers.”

One day last year, Harbaugh had a media engagement right after a training camp practice, so he could not participate with the players. After the media appearance, Harbaugh walked back onto the empty field and, by himself, flipped a weighted sled back and forth for several minutes. A young Chargers fan was standing in a tent on the sideline yelling to Harbaugh. “Coach! Coach! Can you sign an autograph?” Harbaugh paid him no mind until he was done with his sets. It might seem comical or even performative, but players notice the commitment.

Harbaugh’s meetings are now the stuff of legend in the Chargers’ locker room. On the night before a Week 10 win over the Tennessee Titans last season, Harbaugh read the lyrics to the 1976 song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot. The song tells the story of a shipwreck in Lake Superior, and the Sunday the Chargers played the Titans was the 49th anniversary of the disaster. In another meeting last season, Harbaugh read the lyrics to the 2009 hit “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. Before the season finale against the Raiders last year, Harbaugh reached into his pants during a team meeting and pulled out a back-scratcher.

“You need to have your own back sometimes,” Harbaugh said to the players. “There’s not always going to be somebody there to scratch your back for you, so you do it yourself.”

He then gifted a personalized back-scratcher to each player emblazoned with their name and number.

Harbaugh often talks about waking up in the early-morning hours thinking about the team, the team, the team. He targets his idiosyncrasies toward the ultimate goal in his life right now. “The Lombardi Trophy, that’s my mission,” Harbaugh said.

He had a chance in the 2012 season when his San Francisco 49ers lost to the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl. Harbaugh faced his brother John in that game. Last season, the Chargers played the Ravens on “Monday Night Football.” In the lead-up to another brotherly rematch, Harbaugh recalled what he was thinking after that Super Bowl loss.

“Walking off the field at that Super Bowl, it was like, there will be another day,” Harbaugh said. “And then there wasn’t for many years, and it looked like I wouldn’t have a chance for another day. But by the grace of God … we’re back in it and back on a team that has a chance to do that.”

It is perhaps the only accomplishment still missing from what has been a monumental football life.

“We’re going for the Super Bowl,” Harbaugh said. “That’s our goal, and we’re gonna do it or die trying.” — Daniel Popper, Chargers beat writer

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images, Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images, Maddie Meyer / Getty Images, Cal Sports Media via Associated Press)