Jim Harbaugh is so football obsessive.

How football obsessive is he?

Jim Harbaugh is so football obsessive he brings shower cleats with him when he stays in hotels. We’ll be right back with Whitman Mayo!

He’s, interesting, the head man behind the Michigan Wolverines. His likes and passions harken back to a time of wood-paneled station wagons, a murderer’s row of comedic treasures on Carson’s couch and unfiltered cigarettes. Red meat and whole milk, no chicken. I’m not sure how Harbaugh feels about fish, but guess he only likes the species when it’s swimming around in a plastic bag, the prize after he risked the range of motion in his rotator cuff to knock over a mess of milk jugs for it.

Weird doesn’t mean malicious, but it merges into oblivious, unaware of anything going on outside his immediate world of getting lower than the man across the line of scrimmage, obsessing over the pitter-patter of his quarterback’s footwork, and role-playing exercises to accept kickers and punters as football players. No one leans into their image as a football coach more than Jim Harbaugh.

If his obsessiveness permeates to the outside world, imagine how glaring it is in the middle of the season. Outside of the occasional trip to Wrigley Field with his baseball glove (Pedro Strop will see to it that no such opportunity exists this October) what else is there for him to do except generate ulcers on the precipice of the Ohio State game? So why, when consuming football and little else during the season, would Jim Harbaugh go into a meeting with a parent without someone from Michigan’s athletic department flanking both sides of him unless he thought it was about playing time alone?

An August 13 story posted on The Athletic describes a meeting  last year on the Monday after the Michigan State game between former Michigan defensive lineman James Hudson, his family, offensive line coach Ed Warinner, and Harbaugh that ended contentiously with Harbaugh under the impression Hudson did not want to be at Michigan anymore and Hudson’s mom Glenda upset Harbaugh failed to listen to her or James about the symptoms of depression he suffered from.

After the meeting Hudson entered his name in the transfer portal and was ultimately denied the opportunity to play at the University of Cincinnati this year. Glenda criticized Michigan, saying the football program “actively undermined his (James) NCAA waiver for immediate eligibility in the 2019 season on the grounds of mental health relief,” according to the piece.

Since the story broke Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell and Harbaugh traded the sort of tepid accusations that might generate interest on public access television. It boils down to Fickell hand-slapping Harbaugh for not doing that little extra something to assure Hudson’s immediate eligibility. Harbaugh responded with a list of his own personal code of ethics ingrained in the minds of the most dedicated tiger scouts after Fickell called Harbaugh and tried to coach up the coach-iest coach on what to put in the paperwork to seal the deal for Hudson’s eligibility while handing the matter over to the NCAA.

It’s a sad situation for some parties, bitter for others, with a pinch of saltiness thrown in for the tea drinkers. What’s most laughable in the whole mess is the power a head coach yields in determining the eligibility of a player leaving his program.

All but called a backup to the backup heading into the Michigan State game, does anyone think Harbaugh had the knowledge base and the familiarity with Hudson outside of his athleticism to provide the sort of supporting evidence to guarantee his immediate eligibility? What sort of phrases did the arbiters of the NCAA need that Michigan and Harbaugh specifically fail to provide? The NCAA extols the professional aspirations of student athletes as something other than sports, emphasis on the word “student” in that dynamic descriptor of “student athlete.” If they are of the university and not above or apart of the university then why does a football coach’s word carry the gravitas of an entire university when the students are so much more than athletes?

Now we’re left with what to do in future situations. Have the specific department the student athlete interacted with complete the waiver process, though in this instance, the piece states Hudson did not seek any sort of counseling or services from Michigan’s medical department. Leave it out of the coach’s hands after their efforts to keep the student on their roster proves futile.

If it’s a security issue then involve someone from the university’s police department, a physical issue someone from the school’s medical college, mental health goes to someone from the student support services department. I’m not sure Hudson would have a leg up in gaining eligibility if he sought out counseling within the university to deal with his symptoms, but someone with a degree in the field and experience in it would be a better source to explain his situation and need for a change of environment.

It should not come down to Jim Harbaugh or any head coach’s salesmanship to fast-track transfer eligibility. We’re inundated with stories of how the toll of the job turns a majority of head coaches into over-worked devotees to the win. Some sign family contracts in efforts to pledge an allegiance to the human existence, but very few pay attention to the outside world, toiling away at all hours and based on their singular devotion, losing a grasp on reality. We’re going to let the individuals consumed by a won-loss record, a record the defines a majority of their existence and self-worth, have a hand in evaluating another person’s mental state? And on top of it, the NCAA will figure in the commentary in the eligibility decision?

Unless he can help me get back to the form of the pursuit angle I mastered in high school, I don’t want Jim Harbaugh or any coach having a hand in evaluating my well-being.