Inside John and Jim Harbaugh's coaching universe: 'You just want to be attached to that'

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The Harbaugh coaching tree is more like a coaching universe.

Trees can only grow so big. The universe is endless and ever-expanding, a more applicable scale for the Harbaugh influence in football.

The Harbaugh family forms the star at the center of this universe, the power source around which all things orbit. Jack and Jackie Harbaugh created the universe. John and Jim Harbaugh have expanded the universe. There exists a gravitational pull borne out of fiercely held values and philosophies — and winning, of course. Once coaches enter this force field, they never really leave. Instead, they orbit, finding equilibrium in football nirvana.

On Monday night, Jim and John will face off as NFL head coaches for the first time in 12 years when Jim’s Los Angeles Chargers host John’s Baltimore Ravens. At SoFi Stadium, the breadth of the Harbaugh universe will be in view.

Jim is back in the NFL after nine seasons at Michigan. He is in search of the football achievement that has eluded him, that his brother has over him: a Lombardi Trophy. The last time the Harbaughs faced off as head coaches, John’s Ravens bested Jim’s San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII. They were the first brothers to meet as head coaches in a Super Bowl. Jim, after winning a national championship last season at Michigan, is determined to reach the mountaintop in his return to the NFL. He has the Chargers at 7-3 and on a four-game winning streak, changing the organizational culture with the help of familiar faces to both brothers.

“Walking off the field at that Super Bowl, it was like, there’ll be another day,” Jim said this week. “And then there wasn’t for many years, and it looked like I wouldn’t have a chance for another day. But by the grace of God … I’m back in it and back on a team that has a chance to do that.”

Monday will be a cosmic event. Jim on one sideline. John on the other. Their parents will not be in attendance, instead watching the game from Florida with their daughter Joanie and her husband Tom Crean, the former Indiana and Georgia men’s basketball coach, while celebrating their 63rd wedding anniversary.

One of the most unique aspects of Jim and John’s relationship is how they share coaches. As they square off on “Monday Night Football,” the Harbaugh orbits will be actualized, as football people who have worked for both brothers will be pacing around them on the sidelines.

“Nobody I trust more in football than my brother John,” Jim said.

This trust was instrumental as Jim and the Chargers built the new staff in L.A. in the offseason. It started in the front office when the Chargers hired general manager Joe Hortiz, who had spent 16 seasons with John in Baltimore. Hortiz hired Chad Alexander as his assistant general manager and Corey Krawiec as his director of player personnel strategy. Alexander worked with John in Baltimore for 12 seasons, and Krawiec was there for 11 seasons.

“There’s that tremendous track record there, and I know that for sure because of my brother John,” Harbaugh said of Hortiz at his introductory news conference in February. “When my brother says somebody is good, and ‘You and Joe are going to get along great and you’re going to be a great team,’ I know it’s going to be good and it’s going to be dynamic.”

That trust also cultivated the coaching staff. Jim hired two former Ravens offensive coaches he had not previously worked with: tight ends coach and run game coordinator Andy Bischoff and offensive line coach Mike Devlin. On defense, Jim brought coordinator Jesse Minter from Michigan. Minter was a defensive assistant for John in Baltimore from 2017 to 2020.

In 2021, Jim was looking for a new defensive coordinator in Ann Arbor. He reached out to John for recommendations. John offered two names: Mike Macdonald and Minter. Both were Ravens defensive assistants. Jim interviewed both coaches. He hired Macdonald. A year later, John brought Macdonald back to Baltimore as his defensive coordinator. Jim hired Minter as his new defensive coordinator at Michigan.

“Certainly the two best that I’ve been around,” Minter said of John and Jim this week, “and two of the best of all time.”

This past offseason, Jim relied on John. But this has always been a two-way street.

In 2015, John hired Marc Trestman as his offensive coordinator. Trestman first met Jim with the Oakland Raiders in 2002. Trestman was the offensive coordinator. Harbaugh was the Raiders quarterback coach, his first foray into NFL coaching. Trestman is now on Jim’s Chargers staff as a senior offensive assistant.

In 2017, John hired Greg Roman to his offensive staff. Roman entered the Harbaugh universe in 2001 when Jim was a quarterback with the Carolina Panthers. Roman was a 29-year-old offensive line assistant. Eight years later, Jim hired Roman at Stanford. He brought him to the San Francisco 49ers as his offensive coordinator in 2011. Roman spent four years as the Ravens offensive coordinator from 2019 to 2022, including for quarterback Lamar Jackson’s first MVP season. Roman is now Jim’s offensive coordinator in Los Angeles.

Ravens running backs coach Willie Taggert is in the rare air of having coached for all three Harbaughs. He was an offensive assistant for Jack at Western Kentucky for four seasons. He was Jim’s running backs coach for three seasons at Stanford. He has been with John for the past two seasons in Baltimore.

“The universe is just exponentially growing each and every year,” Trestman said.

These connections are most often intentional. But sometimes, the universe acts in mysterious ways.

Bischoff entered the Harbaugh universe in 2007 when he was the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in Minneapolis. Jim, then the head coach at Stanford, came by to scout and recruit two of Bischoff’s players.

“That was 20 years ago,” Bischoff said, “and it was like it was yesterday.”

The next year, Bischoff joined Trestman’s staff with the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL. In 2013, Trestman was hired as the Chicago Bears head coach. Bischoff followed him there. In 2015, Trestman went to the Ravens as offensive coordinator following his firing in Chicago.

“When John hired me, I asked him if I could bring Andy with,” Trestman said. “And obviously John really loved Andy.”

“A chance meeting at a private high school in Minneapolis by a coach from Stanford leads to all of these other things,” said Bischoff, who spent the next six seasons in Baltimore.

“They don’t forget,” Trestman said of Jim and John.

The beauty of the Harbaugh universe is that the attraction is mutual. It is not just that Jim and John share coaches as brothers and best friends. It is that the assistant coaches are eager, willing and even determined to stay in the orbit of these football legends.

Same goes for former players. Jim has three former 49ers players on his Chargers staff: linebackers coach NaVorro Bowman, offensive assistant Jonathan Goodwin and assistant defensive line coach Will Tukuafu. Jim also hosted former 49ers Delanie Walker and Mike Iupati as training camp interns this summer. And former 49ers defensive back Dashon Goldson is a season-long coaching intern on Jim’s staff.

Baltimore defensive coordinator Zach Orr played 46 games for John’s Ravens from 2014 to ’16. He became a defensive assistant on John’s staff the year after he stopped playing and worked his way up before taking over as coordinator after Macdonald landed the Seattle Seahawks head coach job.

“You just want to be attached to that,” Bischoff said of the Harbaugh universe. “You want to provide for that. They make you want to be your very best. You don’t want to let them down.”

In turn, coaches are motivated to bring others into the orbit. Trestman did that for Bischoff. Together, they have brought Marcus Brady into the Harbaugh universe. Brady got his coaching start with the Alouettes in 2009, transitioning from a quarterback under Trestman to his wide receivers coach. After nine seasons in the CFL, Brady coached for the Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles before landing on Jim’s Chargers staff as the passing game coordinator.

Tread with caution when suggesting, though.

“You don’t want to bring in the wrong person to Jim because he’ll remember. You don’t want to bring the wrong person into John. He’ll remember,” Bischoff said. “You better take great pride in who you recommend. That’s a fact with both guys because they have good memories.”

Brady cleared that bar by a considerable margin.

“I’m just so proud of him,” Trestman said.

Familiarity is inherent to the coaching world. When a head coach builds a staff, you can always play six degrees of separation to find where various members crossed paths. The connections themselves are not unique to the Harbaughs. Rather, it is what fosters the connections that are unique.

Bischoff left the Ravens in 2021 to join David Culley’s staff with the Houston Texans. Culley had been John’s assistant head coach for the previous two seasons. Bischoff was the assistant tight ends coach. Mark Andrews was emerging as a star. The Ravens had just won 11 games and reached the divisional round of the playoffs. Bischoff was not actively looking for an opportunity elsewhere. Until he had a conversation with John, who told Bischoff, “It would really be good for you to grow.”

Bischoff said he was struck by John’s “selflessness to want to see Culley succeed.” He took the job in Houston.

“They just empower people,” Minter said of Jim and John. “They have a way of making everybody feel that whatever job they have, whatever role they have on the team, that that’s really, really important. And then also, particularly with players and coaches, it’s about development for them.”

Early in the offseason, Jim was outlining to his new Chargers coaches how he wanted them to approach presentations to the players.

“It should be a job interview,” Bischoff remembered Jim saying. “If you’re presenting red zone, you should be presenting it so that anybody that watches that wants to hire you as a coordinator.”

Jim added one other note: “By the way, we’re videotaping it all, and I’m happy to give it away.”

“They’re so contraire to the norm, which is protect my coaches, control my coaches, limit my coaches,” Bischoff said. “They’re the opposite. They come right out and say, ‘I wouldn’t have hired you if I didn’t think you could be a coordinator or a head coach.’”

The empowerment is rooted in the idea of family. A lot of football people talk about developing a family in their buildings. Jim and John — through Jack’s lessons — live it. They breathe it. They nurture it.

“Football builds family if done the right way,” Hortiz said at his introductory news conference in February.

Jim was asked this week what he learned from Jack about leadership.

“It’s a thousand little things that add up to make all the difference,” he said. “A lot of times it will be what some people think is the minutia or the little things. But it’s those thousand little things that add up to make all the difference.”

There are no shortcuts to building lasting relationships. To building family. Jim and John understand that deeply. It has to be groomed day after day by what you do, not what you say.

They achieve this goal in different ways, but the motivation is the same.

In Baltimore, for example, John allows assistant coaches to bring their kids on road trips. Four coaches per road trip. The kids have to be over 12 years old, and they help out during the game on the sideline.

“They’re on the sideline working the book, holding my hand for a last-second field goal,” Bischoff said. “That stuff is unique.”

In Los Angeles, Jim holds family dinners on Saturday nights in the Chargers cafeteria at The Bolt. In between practice and the evening meetings, family members join the coaches for the group meal.

“This is an environment very foreign to a lot of NFL environments,” Bischoff said, “and it’s the same way in both buildings.”

A thousand little things.

“People lose sight of the family piece to it when you’re in this vicious world of competitive NFL football,” Bischoff said. “They’ve not lost sight of what’s important.”

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These shared values are what allow coaches to seamlessly transition from one brother to the other.

“They’re incredibly loyal men,” Bischoff said, “and I think they breed loyalty on their staff.”

Trestman, who previously taught a leadership course as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law, sees three primary qualities that Jim and John share: “Self-awareness, vulnerability, and humility.”

“It’s really hard with this generation of player not to have all three,” Trestman said. “To be able to say, ‘I made a mistake, I can do better.’ That just builds trust.”

From these qualities come relatability. And from reliability comes that familial environment.

“Those are three qualities that go beyond X’s and O’s, and the best coaches are able to show their emotions,” Trestman said. “They’re aware not only of how they see themselves, but self-awareness, to me, is also about understanding how others see you. Are they empathetic, or are they so caught in the weeds that they don’t feel what their players feel? Jim and John, they’ve both been around long enough, head coaches long enough, I think those qualities are very similar.”

This is the fabric of the Harbaugh universe.

“The support, the loyalty, the family-driven leadership,” Bischoff said.

On Monday night, it returns in full to the NFL stage.

“My gratitude and appreciation for my family,” Jim said, “is beyond words.”

(Top illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos of Greg Roman, John Harbaugh, Jim Harbaugh and Marc Trestman: Scott Taetsch, Courtney Culbreath, Jared C. Tilton, David Banks / Getty Images)