Kornacki: Jay Harbaugh Joins Family Lineage at Michigan
1/20/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Jay Harbaugh has picked up his family's college coaching torch by joining the Michigan staff as the tight ends coach.
His grandfather, Jack, gave his uncle, John, and his father, Jim, their first college coaching positions. John, the highly successful coach of the Baltimore Ravens, began as the running backs and outside linebackers coach for his father at Western Michigan. Jim started as a volunteer assistant coach for his father at Western Kentucky while still playing quarterback in the NFL.
Jay, the oldest of the Wolverines' head coach's six children, spent the last three years as the offensive quality control coach for the Ravens. Now he's teaming up with dad.
"This is a very good opportunity," said Harbaugh, 25. "To be building from the ground up from day one with him and the quality coaches on this staff is very special."
When asked what he will call his father now that he's working for him, Jay said, "I can't imagine calling him anything but 'dad.' But, then, calling him 'dad' here might be weird. It's a good question."
Jay chuckled and added, "Ask me that a week from now."
He's already immersed himself in the task at hand at Schembechler Hall, coaching a position that incorporates blocking and pass catching into the offense.
"I'm really excited about that," Jay said. "To have a room of guys to work with is special. I've met them, and they're tremendous men.
"I'll ask them for everything they have in meeting rooms, in practices and on the field. I want them all to know the basics and the fundamentals so that they are second nature."
Jim has emphasized tight ends in his college and pro offenses. Vernon Davis caught 52 passes for 850 yards and 13 touchdowns to make his second Pro Bowl team for the San Francisco 49ers in 2013. Harbaugh recruited Zach Ertz to Stanford and coached him for two years. Ertz became an All-American and was the first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013.
So, Jay is in charge of an important position in the offense. Jake Butt, who has 41 catches for 446 yards and four touchdowns in his first two seasons, is the most prominent pass-catching tight end on the current roster.
Jay was a defensive lineman in high school, but knee injuries ended his playing career. He graduated from Oregon State and was an undergraduate assistant to Beavers head coach Mike Riley.
Riley, who recently became Nebraska's head coach, told the San Jose Mercury News, "Jay has forged his own way in this business to be a very good young coach. Jay is a grinder. He's like Jim to a T."
Jay's emphasis was on special teams at Oregon State.
"He set the standard for our program," Riley said.
Then it was off to the Ravens as a quality control coach.
"I did everything necessary for the other coaches to do their jobs efficiently," Harbaugh said. "I would break down game film and chart tendencies by opposing defenses and chart defensive coverages. I would coach the scout teams and work with the special teams. It provided me a really great over-view of everything with an emphasis on detail."
And he earned a championship ring in his first year, when the Ravens beat the 49ers, 34-31, in Super Bowl XLVII, which was called both the "HarBowl" and "Harbaugh Bowl" as brother coached against brother.
"On either the Thursday or Friday before that game," said Jay, "I went to the 49ers' hotel to visit dad. But I couldn't really hang out there. It was like I was coming behind enemy lines at their hotel. But it was a good problem to have."
I asked Jim what he recalled about that experience in my book, "Go Blue! Michigan's Greatest Football Stories."
"At the Super Bowl," Harbaugh said, "I only had one moment when I reflected on all that. It was during the national anthem, and there was my brother with his arm around his daughter. And there was Andy (Moeller), and there was Jay. My son was a first-year intern-slash-weight room-slash-quality control-slash-video-guy."
Moeller, the son of former Wolverines coach Gary, was Harbaugh's teammate at Ann Arbor Pioneer High, and they were co-captains on the 1986 Big Ten championship team at Michigan.
Ever since he could remember, Jay was wearing Wolverines hats and T-shirts.
"Michigan has been held in high regard by me for a long time," said Jay.
And like his father, he's wanted to coach since he was a boy.
"Dad had such an influence on me," said Jay. "I watched the way he approached his work. He has a special tenacity that you can't measure. It was, 'Just go for it. Know what you want.' What you see is what he's like -- a mentally tough go-getter. I learned that from him.
"My goal is to do as well as I can with these tight ends at Michigan. I'm really excited to get to work. I'm not saying I want to be a head coach someday like my grandfather and like my father. But I've been preparing for that. I certainly aspire to a spot like that, where you can impact a lot of people."
• Jay Harbaugh Joins Staff as Tight Ends, Assistant Special Teams Coach
