It’s well-documented by now that Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh can be an energetic man. Sometimes his energy can come out as frustration during a game, sometimes it comes out at a Migos concert. And sometimes it comes out during a pickup basketball game with family.
During an appearance on The MMQB Podcast, Jim’s brother, Ravens coach John Harbaugh, recounted a vacation story about a pickup game that got really competitive because of Jim. It was supposed to be a fun, innocuous basketball game with the adult Harbaughs and all of their small children. But Jim Harbaugh, a grown-ass man who used to play quarterback in college and the NFL, did not want to lose to John, whose team was up 5-1. So, he stole the show:
Next thing you know, Jim starts going over the top of [14-year-old] Allison for rebounds, he's boxing her out 10 feet away from the basket. Next thing you know, it's 5-5 and Jim has made all the shots for his team of course. I'm like, you know, maybe [6-year-old] Addy would like to touch the ball? Maybe [4-and-a-half-year-old] Katie or [2-and-a-half] Jack could dribble a little bit now and then? It goes 6-6 and a long rebound comes out the side, he goes and gets it. I see Allison happens to be over there, so I see him going to the basket, he's going to take Allison to the hole, you know, he's about 6-3, 235, so I'm going to go cut him off. I get him with my right arm bar across his chest and I'm trying to body check him into the pricker bushes behind the driveway and he just powers his way to the basket, lays one over the top, a reverse layup off the board and all he could talk about is how he won. He picks up Jack and says, 'Doesn't it feel great Jack, to win? Doesn't it feel great to win?'
Of course, Jim decided to mess with John and twist the knife a little — over a family basketball game that had toddlers playing.
An hour later we were crossing paths in the backyard to go get a soda or something, and he looks me right in the eye and he says, ‘Hey John, have you won anything yet?’”
Peter King then told John he should’ve brought up the fact that he beat Jim at Super Bowl XLVII, to which John responded: “I kinda looked him in the eye. I felt like that was an unspoken communication. It didn’t feel like I needed to say that in that moment, I tried to take the high road.”
A friendly reminder that this is the same Jim Harbaugh who once got (jokingly) angry at a Citrus Bowl event that featured a game where people shake balls out of a box using their butts. The same Jim Harbaugh who won laser tag by hunting down a 10-year-old kid. The same Jim Harbaugh who committed a hard foul on Maryland coach D.J. Durkin during their one-on-one basketball game. The same Jim Harbaugh who brought a glove with him to Game 5 of the 2016 World Series.
We probably shouldn’t be too surprised at Jim’s competitiveness by now.
You can hear the rest of John Harbaugh’s interview over at Sports Illustrated.