Lowell Cohn: Jim Harbaugh the same as ever

Jim Harbaugh is one of the most interesting people in sports. One of the most fascinating characters I’ve covered - for good and bad reasons. I love writing about Harbaugh. Here goes one more time.

In Wednesday’s Chron, my friend Bruce Jenkins wrote a strong, insightful column about Harbaugh’s crackup in Michigan’s loss to Ohio State. Harbaugh screaming at officials. Harbaugh criticizing the officials after the game. Harbaugh getting fined by the Big Ten.

About Harbaugh’s behavior, Jenkins wrote, “There is no lesson more unacceptable than ‘We got screwed.’?”

Jenkins also wrote the Michigan players “had to watch their head coach behave like a raving lunatic - at one point earning a penalty - and act as if this loss was out of his hands.”

I agree with everything Jenkins wrote. Harbaugh made the game about him. Bad. Copped excuses for the loss. Very bad. He did the same stuff with the 49ers. I once asked if he could control himself during games. He looked at me like I was a nut and asked, “You mean change my behavior?”

Well, yes.

Not a chance.

But this is not a column criticizing Harbaugh. Jenkins handled that admirably. This is a column trying to make sense of Harbaugh. Trying to explain the Harbaughness of Jim. What makes him tick?

And please remember I like the guy. Miss him. Miss his passion. Wish he still were coaching that bedraggled bunch in Santa Clara. Wish I could attend his weekly press conferences. Pure theater.

Harbaugh is all masculinity and testosterone. He is a boxer who never gives up the edge. He wants to knock you out. He can’t say, “We lost to the better team.” Impossible. He especially can’t say that about an Urban Meyer team - Meyer his Moriarty (see Sherlock Holmes). Harbaugh would rather poke out his own eyes than be a good loser. Good losers are the losers of the world, pure and simple.

Harbaugh is a sore loser. The Platonic ideal of a sore loser. This trait runs deep in him. It involves recruiting. He would rather go with the mentality that people “have it in for us” than be a mature loser. Better to be bad loser and keep his edge than be a good loser or a good sport or any of that junk society pretends to admire.

So, sure, in his mind the officials screwed the Wolverines. For him it’s personal. Always personal. It was personal between him and Jed York. It’s personal between him and anyone he competes against. Pete Carroll. The world is out to get a Jim Harbaugh team. Bordering on paranoia here.

“We are the bad boys.” That’s what he’s thinking. He likes being a bad boy. He advertises his badness to recruits. In one way or another, he conveys that to them. “You want to be with the bad boys, right? Watch me. I can say whatever I want and the Big Ten or the NFL - choose your phony organization - can’t do jack to me. Who cares about a reprimand from the Big Ten?”

He rubs his badness in the face of football.

He is a teenager. He is 52 and he’s a teenager. Everything is a game to him. Everything is competition. Everything is win or lose. No bigger picture exists in his brain. He has no bigger perspective than that.

Something confuses the issue. He is very smart. Can reason brilliantly. Is a verbal whiz. Quick with his words. Has humor. Irony. Could have grown up in New York. A blast to be around even if you’re the one he’s putting down.

And you can argue with him. Right there at press conferences. He loves the back and forth. Admires a sports writer for having the guts to argue - remember, everything is a competition to him.

Sometimes, teenagers are very smart. Precocious. Like a typical teenager, Harbaugh lacks wisdom. Wisdom is different from smarts.

You wouldn’t go to Harbaugh for advice. Never would ask his opinion about something grownup like, say, your marriage or your job or your purpose in life. He would be out of his depth. Might not even care.

Four topics he can talk about with authority. Football. Basketball. Baseball. Television. He’s always wearing a cap. Can’t remember the last time I saw his hair. Does he even comb it? At the Super Bowl, he did a press conference with his brother John. John wore a sport jacket. Jim wore a sweatshirt and cap.

Did he think that was appropriate attire when he represented the 49ers to the world?

Well, why wouldn’t it be?

That’s how he thinks. If a cap and a sweatshirt are good enough for the sideline, they’re good enough for a freaking press conference with the freaking media who never helped a coach win a single freaking ballgame. Waste of his time.

At lunch, he eats a sandwich and drinks a glass of milk. Like he’s still growing. Like he can eke out an extra half-inch.

He is a great football coach with minimum self-knowledge. And he does hurt his team. All this us-against-the-world business turns people against him. Like the officials. He’s in their ears all game and then maybe they rule against him on a close play that could have gone either way. They don’t mean to show their bias, but they’re human. Had it up to here. Get even without even knowing it. Harbaugh doesn’t understand this. Never will.

He’s a teenager. The world is out to screw him.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.