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Jackie Harbaugh, mother of new Giants coach John Harbaugh as well as Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh, takes a timeout from the House of Harbaugh for some Mother’s Day Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: Your husband Jack tells a tale that your face touched the mashed potatoes when John revealed he would like to pursue coaching.
A: Well, it just depends if you want Jack’s story, which makes everybody laugh, or you want the truth.
Q: (Laugh) Let’s go with the truth.
A: (Laugh) John had finished up at Miami [Ohio], and he came home, and because he majored in political science, I thought, “Well, maybe he’d be interested in law school.” So, he came home and we were having lunch, and Jack was not there. So he said, “Mom, I’ve been thinking about [it.] I’d love to try coaching before I think about anything else.” I said, “OK, well what are you thinking?” He said, “Well, I think I’ve always kind of wanted to do that, and I just think I’d like to give it a try.” And I said, “That sounds fine with me, John, you could always go to law school if you want. It’s not like you can’t try something before, right?” I told him, “I did think you might go to law school, but if this is what you want to do, you better try it now because you can always go to law school.”
Q: Why do you think he would have made a good lawyer?
A: I think he would have made a good lawyer because, first of all, he’s pretty knowledgeable about all of that kind of thing, the laws and the Constitution, all the political science classes that he took and all of that. And because he’s a people person, he listens, he’s logical in his thinking, and I guess his daughter Alison got some of that because she’s off to law school [Loyola Chicago]!
Q: You also thought he could be a good president.
A: Oh yeah, I did think that. I do still think that. I think he has a lot of good common sense. I think all three of them [John, Jim and Joani] have really good common sense.
Q: Why has John been successful?
A: Life is about a lot of situations and a lot of different relationships along the way, and a lot of ups and downs, so they grew up seeing all that. And kids take in more when they’re even toddlers than you think they do. But they remember things and they see how things are done and they see how people treat one another. John was almost like a sponge in that respect. He kept absorbing all this along the way, and life is a one-day-at-a-time proposition no matter what comes up in your life, and I think he has shown as an adult that that’s how he has handled his life in a sense. … He and Jim on that journey are different because Jim ends up getting a full scholarship to college [Michigan], and John had a partial at Miami of Ohio, and he worked really hard at that, and Jim worked really hard at his, and Jim ends up playing in the NFL all those years and John was coaching all those years at different levels. … And all the time he was making a plan. Everybody has dreams or they set goals. Sometimes you do reach those, and sometimes you don’t, and sometimes there’s a roadblock or a stumble-block. But he has always handled that by moving on. He had a plan for if he ever became a head coach. By the time he got to the Ravens, he had a plan ready for how to start that whole program. And also I think when it ended after 18 years, he had put his whole heart and soul into the job, and bringing it to fruition. … Also, he’s a very thoughtful person. He thinks things out and through. He’s very nice to people. You always get to know the people in your building when you first come in, from the top to the bottom, from the bottom to the top, whatever they do. Everybody has a role in this organization, and if you’re the leader of the football team, you’re still, in a sense, including the people who work in the media, the people who work in the kitchen, the people who do all those things for the players, and treat them with respect and fairness. And always treat your players fairly. He has grown up with all that kind of thing.
Q: What other adjectives would you use to describe John?
A: I’d say he’s very caring. I’d say he’s a very virtuous kind of person. His faith is very important to him. I believe he’s honest. I believe that he takes the high road in difficult situations. He doesn’t play the sour grapes game. He doesn’t throw anybody under the bus, players or organizations. He tries to find a way that you can handle those situations without being nasty.
Q: What do you think his mindset is as he takes on this new job in New York after 18 years in Baltimore? How motivated do you think he’ll be?
A: As motivated as he’s ever been with every job he’s taken. I believe he’s always said, “I’m all in. I promise that we will do the very best that we can.” That’s another thing that I think that we’ve all learned growing up, I go all the way back to my grandparents. It’s a philosophy that you do the very best that you can with what you have at any point in your life. And that means that you have to do things one day at a time. And also, I think it means that you should be grateful for what you have at any given time in your life. You should be grateful for the opportunities that you have. It’s funny, because the other day I came across this old saying by Cicero that said, “To be grateful is the greatest virtue of all because all the other virtues come from gratefulness.” And I just think that that’s something that we take so much for granted every day of our lives, and I think that I see in John and Jim and Joani, that they are grateful, and they don’t go around bragging about what they do behind the scenes or what generosities they have unknowingly given throughout their adult years to many groups or organizations or people. I think they all have a sense of humbleness in their lives and I think, as John said once, “People really don’t know Jim.” Because they always want to put some kind of moniker on him, you know?
Q: Knowing what you know of New York, is this a perfect marriage for John?
A: I think that John will probably approach being in New York the way he’s approached relationships with different individuals that he didn’t know before. He will look at what he sees, what he experiences and he will probably form some kind of a judgment, but the one thing that I think everybody thinks about New York is it was one of the very first really big cities in our growing up, right? I mean, New York … Frank Sinatra said it, right, New York, New York. Everything that you could imagine that could be anywhere is probably in New York, positively or negatively. John will look at it positively. That’s how he’ll look at New York. And if New York accepts that, then good for them.
Q: New York scares some coaches and players. John won’t be scared by New York, is that safe to say?
A: No, he’s not going to be scared by New York because he’s going to embrace what New York has to offer in the sense of its historical culture and what it offers. He thinks positively about things. He may have some negative thoughts about different things, we all do. You have to just go into a situation thinking positively and not being swayed by necessarily what other people tell you, whether it’s about a person or a thing, because that was their experience. This is not going to be your experience, and I think about this because coaching and teaching are alike. You have to take the people where they are when you meet them. You can’t judge them for the first time by what somebody else told you about them. It’s like going in your first time to teach in a classroom, and the teacher saying, “Well, let me tell you about this person and that person and this person that was in that class before.” And I said, “That’s OK, I don’t need to know that, I’ll figure them out for myself.” And then once you do, in a sense you’re treating them fairly. This is new ground for John. This is a new team, they’re totally different people, they’re totally different players than the ones he ended with at Baltimore. But they’re going to be treated fairly. And they’re going to be judged by their own merits and their own abilities, and hopefully then they come together as a family, so to speak.
Q: What would you tell fans of the New York Football Giants who are starving for a winner about their new coach?
A: I would tell them what he told them, “We will do the very best we can every single day to make you proud of your team.” And, I would also say to them, “Just take one game at a time. And take one down at a time. And don’t try to second-guess everything because you’re not in the arena. And just enjoy the game when you’re there, and don’t keep thinking about Super Bowl, Super Bowl, Super Bowl. It could come, but it’s going to take one game at a time, and be there and be enthusiastic for your team because that’s like the 12th player on the field, in a sense.”
Q: What drove him as a child and what drives him now?
A: First of all, I think he’s really driven by his faith, which kept progressing. I think he totally wants to do the very best that he can in whatever situation he’s in. As a parent, that was something that we always stressed — just do your very best at something. You’re not going to be perfect in everything, right? But if you’re doing your very best, whatever the situation is, whatever the task is, just try to do it maybe a little bit better than you did it the last time. Always try not to judge … treat people fairly, don’t try to always judge a person by the cover of the book. And you never really know someone until you actually make an effort to sit down and talk with them and learn about their life and maybe some of their ups and downs, and I think John has always tried to do that. And so has Jim and Joani with people that they meet. And if there’s any way they can help them, they do.
Q: Who took care of the discipline?
A: We probably both did, in a sense. But I probably spent more time with that. For Jim, he was usually the taller one in the class, and he spoke out loudly, and that throws off some teachers, I guess.
Q: John was not like that?
A: No, he wasn’t more like that, but Jim wasn’t like that every single day.
Q: John assisted your husband at Western Michigan.
A: I thought it was great. It was so good for Jack, too. The first year he was unpaid, like a graduate assistant, and he got his master’s degree that first year. After that, Jack, I believe, made him the running backs coach.
Q: Describe the day you found out John was hired to coach the Baltimore Ravens.
A: Before that, he had told us all about the interviews and how all that went, and then when they finally told him that he would be the head coach of the Ravens, he called us and he wanted us to come to Baltimore for the press conference.
Q: What do you remember thinking during the press conference?
A: I thought he did a fantastic job, and when he said, “I’m going to attack this day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind (laugh),” Jack and I both looked at each other and Jack had a big smile on his face (laugh). I’ll tell you another thing about that — I thought it was so nice that so many of the Philadelphia media came to that press conference. That, to me, said a lot about John also and how he treated the media fairly and respectfully.
Q: A Christmas Day memory?
A: There was one Christmas Day at my mom’s when they were younger, maybe they were 5 and 6, and they were both trying to open a peanut can or something, and somebody got the top off and cut their finger, if I remember correctly. That Christmas, they were in the emergency room for a little while.
Q: John’s favorite meal growing up?
A: I would think it was probably pasta. We had a lot of pasta growing up, and with a lot of different things, but probably more like a meat sauce, or spaghetti and meatballs.
Q: John’s wedding day.
A: In Cincinnati. It was a very, very steamy hot day, but it was a beautiful day. They were beautiful together, and a lot of relatives were there.
Q: The birth of John and Ingrid’s daughter.
A: John was at football camp in August. Ingrid and I three days before had driven up to the camp. And then we came back home, and later on that evening, she started feeling as if she needed to go to the hospital. So I drove her to the hospital, and I was there with her.
Q; Were you there when John saw his daughter Alison for the first time?
A: It was awesome. It was just awesome. You’re always, when you see that baby, it really and truly is still a miracle.
Q: How many grandchildren do you have?
A: Eleven, and two greats.
Q: You’ve been described by family members as the rock of the family.
A: I’m very flattered that they said that, but I always felt that my responsibility was to make sure that we understood where we were coming from as a family, Jack and I. There weren’t any books on parenting and all that, and you learned from day to day really how to parent besides having watched your own parents, but we moved so much in those early years with Jack in coaching. We were, during those first eight years, moving just about every two years.
Q: You moved 17 times?
A: It’s not like I felt anything in particular, it’s that, “OK, we’re moving.” Jack goes to the next job, and I just pack up, and my mom and dad, God bless them, they would come with a truck because my dad was an auto mechanic and he would fix all these trucks in East Cleveland. There was a company called the B&B Biscuit Truck, and so he would move us in that. I didn’t give it any particular thought because, “OK, it’s another job.” I took care of everything at home. We had a family, three kids, and somebody had to be the mainstay, so to speak. It’s not like I didn’t have part-time jobs along the way, I just didn’t have a real profession, so to speak, and I did a lot of volunteer work wherever we were. We just kept rolling along with Jack’s profession, with his job, and I always felt that I had to keep things in order at home even though I tried to do the things that I wanted to do, like going back to graduate school or tutoring or things like that.
Q: Why did you decide to go to Bowling Green?
A: First, I went to Kent State, I had a partial scholarship for $200 — if you can believe that back in 1957 (laugh) — because I thought at that time I would like to major in physical education and maybe have an English minor, but because I was involved in athletics in high school, I got a scholarship to the P.E. program at Kent State. But then I went to visit Miami University in Oxford, and I went to Bowling Green, and when I got to Bowling Green, I’m walking across campus, and I went with one of my friends from high school, and they were all so friendly. Then I went back and I told my physical education teacher at Shaw High School that I changed my mind and I was going to go to Bowling Green. So then I had to pay back the $200. By the time I was a sophomore, I had decided that I thought I’d like to major in English and take a minor in phys. ed.
Q: Did you meet Jack in biology or English class? Jack has been quoted as saying biology class.
A: English class. Our biology teacher, Ernie Hamilton, whose son, Scott, was a famous ice skater, I think that’s why he uses biology.
Q: He didn’t ask you out for three years?
A: At Bowling Green, it’s not like you went out on these formal dates, no one had any money, really. You would just take a walk around campus. Our freshman year we just walked around campus because he had asked me if I might look at a paper he was writing in English on Pip, from Charles Dickens. I said, “Sure, I’ll look at it when you’re done.” And then we just became friends because he was majoring in phys. ed., too, so once in a while we had the same classes together.
Q: Did you aspire to a Peace Corps career?
A: I went for the training. … Well, what happened was Jack (laugh). I was engaged when we went. He was going off to the Buffalo Bills and I had been accepted into the Peace Corps when John Kennedy said they were going to form a Peace Corps when he first got elected, before he took office. So I applied, because I always believed that people around the world are more alike than they’re different as human beings. My junior year in college I went to Vienna, Austria. It was called The Institute of European Studies. I got accepted to go, and then I was out studying, it was at Penn State and I was studying about what we were going do at the Peace Corps, and out of the blue, this person comes up to me and he saw my engagement ring and he said, “You’re engaged. … Why are you here?” I went back to my room where we were staying and I thought about it and I thought about it and for some reason I just went and told them that I don’t believe I’m going to accept it.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Anyone in my family would be my favorite dinner guests to have at any time. At this point in my life, my family is fun to be around, I love all of them dearly, and I’m so proud of all of them, too.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: “To Kill A Mockingbird.”
Q: Favorite actors?
A: Back in the day, I liked Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Alan Ladd.
Q: Favorite actress?
A: June Allyson.
Q: Favorite singer?
A: Andrea Bocelli.
Q; Favorite meal?
A: Italian-type food.
Q: What are your Mother’s Day plans?
A: We are heading out to Jim’s in California. I think Jim and his family have some things planned, so we just will go with the flow.
Q: You were in the commissioner’s box for Super Bowl XLVII — John’s Ravens versus Jim’s 49ers.
A: We didn’t want to show any partiality during the game.
Q: How about after the game?
A: We went down on the field to see John and to congratulate him, and then Ingrid and Alison and everybody were so happy, and we felt really joyful for John, we were happy for the Ravens at that time. But we also knew that we needed to go over to Jim’s locker room because that’s not going to be the same kind of feeling. Especially when you’re playing your brother. That’s so much more pressure on you, even more than when players who are brothers on two different teams play each other. So we walked over there and the Ravens security took us over there so we could find it. We waited and waited and then somebody came out and said that Jim wanted to see Jack. Then finally they came out, and because it was like about 11:30 p.m., we had to go back to our hotel and Jim’s hotel was a different hotel, so we got on the last bus that was there to take whomever back to the 49ers hotel. … I could see how distraught Jim was, and I didn’t say anything. You’ve been through so many wins and losses. And then [Jim’s son] Jimmy got on, and he sat down a row on the opposite side in front of us and then Jim came on and he sat down next to Jimmy. And Jimmy put his arm around him and his head on his shoulder, and … I had tears in my eyes because I thought, “Wow.” And the reason is because when we got up to walk off the bus, I tapped Jim on his shoulder before he got off and I said to Jim, “Who has it better than you right now, Jim, than to have your son show you how proud he is of you, how much he loves you?” And he turned around and looked at me and shook his head yes. And I said, “Whatever you do, Jim, when you walk into that hotel and all those people are there, you walk in with your head up because you just led your team in your first year to the biggest game in football. And you’ve let them know how proud you are of them.” And then Jack and I got off and we walked back to our hotel, and ran into a bunch of relatives (laugh).
Q: Who knows, it could happen again, right?
A: No, you never know, and when that time comes and that situation may be upon us if we’re still here on this earth, we’ll attack it with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind (laugh).
Q: Would you welcome another Harbaugh Super Bowl, or a Harbowl II? Or would you dread it?
A: I’d put a lot of pressure on the commissioner and ask him again if this game could end in a tie, please.
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