Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh knows his audience.
For Sunday’s joint Michigan-Hawaii camp at Saint Louis School, Harbaugh wore a replica jersey of the Crusaders’ most decorated football player.
“I bought it from a street vendor in L.A. (on Saturday),” Harbaugh said of Titan-blue-colored Marcus Mariota jersey.
Harbaugh has played to wide-ranging audiences as part of Michigan’s so-called “Summer Swarm” of satellite camps across the mainland and in American Samoa and Australia. Sunday’s three-hour camp was Harbaugh’s 37th since June 1.
“It’s been incredible,” Harbaugh said. “I haven’t had this much fun in seven months. My wife came to two of the camps. She said: ‘It’s just amazing to watch the youngsters out there, and they’re working so hard, and they’re living their dream. It’s just cute.’ I said, ‘Well, cute’s not really a word we use in football.’ But it really was. She summed it up perfectly.”
Harbaugh was an NFL quarterback for 14 seasons before embarking on a coaching career in college and with the San Francisco 49ers.
“Just being able to coach anywhere — high school, college, pro football — and teach is where you get the joy from,” Harbaugh said. “I can tell you this, I was wide awake at 4:45 a.m. (Sunday) and excited to get to camp, like it was the first (camp of the tour), the only one. It feels like a game to me to be able to come out here and be around young people who have a heart for football.”
He acknowledged that there has been “talk” about the sport’s future.
“You see the movies, you read the articles, etc.,” Harbaugh said. “But the game has never been stronger. It’s stronger in the young people of today that I meet and encounter. Hundreds and hundreds of kids come to these camps, and they want to show what they can do. They really have a love for the game. You can see it in their faces. It lights them up. So that is inspiring to me.”
Harbaugh said at least one member of his family has attended 70 percent of the satellite camps.
“The first leg we went out and did 10 camps,” Harbaugh said. “My son Jack, the day we were leaving, said, ‘Dad, I want to go to football camp with you.’ He’s 3 years old. That’s something I’ll remember until they throw dirt over the top of me, that he wanted to come to football camp with his dad. “
Harbaugh said his wife and six children accompanied him on this trip. They will stay on Oahu for another few days. Last week, Harbaugh announced his wife is expecting the couple’s seventh child.
“I’m over-the-moon excited,” Harbaugh said, “to-the-moon-and-back excited.”