The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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THE WOLVERINE 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ■ 27 Three days later, Harbaugh flew cross-coun- try to Los Angeles to meet with another of the nation's top recruits. Loyola High cornerback David Long, Rivals.com's No. 81 senior recruit nationally, was slated to announce Jan. 21, but Harbaugh had one more chance to make an impression. Long was still at practice when the Michigan coaches arrived at his house. Harbaugh knew one way to make the most of his wait. "When we pulled up, he was already playing catch with my little brother and sister in the street. They were tossing the ball around, play- ing a little bit, while all the other coaches were inside," Long recalled. What happened next destroyed social media again. "My little sister asked if he could climb a tree," Long recalled with a laugh. "There was nothing stuck up in it or anything like that. She just asked if he could climb this tree because it was right next to us. He couldn't climb that one, so he went up and down the block trying to climb trees." Long's resulting snapchat video of Har- baugh hanging from a branch went viral. "He was halfway up a tree," Long said with another laugh. "There was another picture where it was really dark outside, but it was Jay Harbaugh [Jim's son and U-M's tight ends coach] giving him a lift to this really tall tree. I couldn't get a picture or it would have been way better than the video I had. Everybody didn't know it was Jim Harbaugh outside my house climbing a tree." Harbaugh's tree-scaling skills were impres- sive, Long recalled, but that wasn't what sold him on the coach and his staff. "I enjoy the energy, really enjoy it," he said. "People can say this and that about him, but it's productive. Everywhere he goes, he's winning. He's continuing to do that, and that's some- thing you want to be around. "He brings around great staff members, too. He brings around great offense and defensive coaches, guys that are energetic and really about their business. I don't need anybody to be a friend — I need somebody to coach me and help us win games. I don't know how long I'll be playing football, so I'm trying to max the opportunity with the best coaches and the best options for myself." **** In his last few weeks on the recruiting trail before Signing Day Harbaugh came up with yet another idea — a "Signing of the Stars" public event in which ESPN's Todd McShay and Lou Holtz and former Denver head coach Mike Shanahan broke down the Wolverines' recruiting class player by player. There were highlights, guest appearances by Tom Brady, former New York Yankees great Derek Jeter, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and even former pro wrestler Ric Flair. Bill Simonson, host of afternoon radio's The Huge Show across Michigan, emceed the event that filled the university's Hill Auditorium with exuberant Wolverine fans. "My expectation going in was how would this come across — could you get the effect you were going for like you wanted to at a "I do not have a medical degree, I do not have a PhD in psychology or psychiatry. Jim is out there; Jim is who he is. There's no hiding it. Everybody's seen it; this is who he is. He drives people, he pushes people … he is the most competitive person on the planet. It's just who he is. "He's going to rub some people the wrong way. He's going to find a way to win football games, because that's what he does. Some people are going to wear out [from him]. Jim says that himself … he has a tendency to wear people out at times. You get the good with the bad. What you get from Jim is 100 miles an hour from day one." — Stanford coach David Shaw, twice a Harbaugh assistant, to radio host and Michigan alum Rich Eisen "If there was one way to best describe Jim Harbaugh's offseason so far, it might come courtesy of the most famous line of MTV's classic reality series Jersey Shore. "Remember that show? And remember how every time our old friend Ronnie had a few too many drinks in him, he would walk up and down the boardwalk and scream 'Come at me, bro!' to just about anyone who crossed into his orbit? "Well it's the same with Harbaugh, only in this case, he isn't going after overly tan bros in v-neck t-shirts, but college football coaches across the SEC." — Aaron Torres, FoxSports.com "Last year's 'Summer Swarm' has become a June Swoon, with approximately [50] camps in 29 days, in- cluding reported visits to American Samoa and Hawaii. It's the dominant story of the college football offseason again, which is crazy. I mean, before Harbaugh arrived, most people assumed a satellite camp was a summer retreat to NASA. "But surely you know by now, this isn't just about camps. It isn't necessarily about giving kids more opportunities, although that's a natural benefit. It isn't even just about recruiting, although that's obviously Harbaugh's unstated intent. "This is about making a point, and Harbaugh's unquenchable competitiveness requires him to make points every chance he gets. And by making such showy points, he's also making enemies. I'm fairly certain this doesn't bother him, and I'm posi - tive he expected it … Harbaugh's intended consequence: make Michigan more visible, while forcing Southern programs to recruit on a slightly more-level field." — Bob Wojnowski, The Detroit News What They're Saying: Jim Harbaugh