In some ways, the circumstances of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh resemble those of former President Donald Trump.
Both leaders are dancing one step ahead of the law in their current professions. Both hope to defy their respective authorities long enough to attain the greatest achievements of their checkered careers.
For Trump, that would mean a third Republican presidential nomination and second election to the White House, where he tainted and abused the United States of America for four tumultuous years.
Should he win, Trump could pardon himself and his cronies or throw sand in the gears of four felony indictments in four venues, including his attempt to illegally overthrow the 2020 election of President Joe Biden.
For Harbaugh, success would mean another victory over Ohio State, another Big Ten title, and — perhaps — his first national championship with the best team he has built in his nine tumultuous seasons.
Such success for Harbaugh would help his superiors and supporters overlook a few things like:
- How one of his players got arrested with an illegal gun last season;
- And that other player who had to apologize for his anti-Semitic social media post;
- And how Harbaugh annually job-shops in the National Football League while making his bosses look meek and weak;
- And how that assistant coach for Harbaugh got fired for snooping in the athletic department computers;
- And the unfortunate dismissal of Bo Schembechler’s son as assistant recruiting director due to posts that “Schemy” passed on about slavery and Jim Crow being good for Black people.
But even an undefeated season would not make the National Collegiate Athletic Association ignore the accusation against Harbaugh, that he failed to be “forthcoming” when the NCAA investigated alleged recruiting violations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That is a polite way to say he lied. In NCAA law, the recruiting violations would be misdemeanors, but the failure to be honest would be a felony.
As with Trump, Harbaugh may soon relearn Richard Nixon’s lesson in Watergate: The cover-up may be worse than the crime. In the meantime, the debate rages in the churning kingdom of college football over the imperiousness of the NCAA and the arrogance of Michigan.
“It’s really been a disaster on both sides,” said Paul Finebaum, an ESPN commentator.
With the curious exception of the Detroit newspaper sports sections, Harbaugh’s discipline has been a major topic of opinionated commentary this week in American sports media.
“Michigan is a polarizing program,” wrote Austin Meek in The Athletic, “with a polarizing coach.”
The coach and his school thought they had a plea deal for a four-game suspension (game-days only) at the start of the approaching season against weak foes.
But the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions rejected the bargain with spite, and alluded to how Michigan fans and apologists have ridiculed this investigation by saying it is merely about the purchase of cheeseburgers for recruits.
“The Michigan infractions case is related to impermissible on- and off- campus recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period — not a cheeseburger,” the statement said.
Harbaugh’s lawyer, Tom Mars of Arkansas, complained that NCAA investigations are supposed to be discreet. “Yet the NCAA can issue a public statement putting spin on the case?” Mars said. “Unreal.”
Harbaugh, at a league media event, would say only that he has “nothing to be ashamed of.” Last month, when it appeared that Harbaugh would accept a four-game suspension, Ari Wasserman in The Athletic called it “A glorified slap on the wrist . . . The penalty is a joke because the crime was a joke.”
Now that the equation has changed, Dan Wetzel wrote in Yahoo! Sports that Harbaugh would face a rigged trial.
“A kangaroo court, meanwhile, is a kangaroo court,” he wrote, “and the NCAA has signaled, quite publicly, that a kangaroo court is exactly what awaits [Harbaugh].”
Even if that is true, this amounts to a win-win for Harbaugh.
If his case takes a year to be decided, he can coach the entire season and, if successful, shop himself again around the NFL. Any severe penalties would land in the laps of athletic director Warde Manuel and school president Santa Ono.
And both of them must deal with football issues beyond their head coach. By adding Oregon and Washington to its capture of USC and UCLA, the “Ten” will soon become an 18-team league, at least until it expands to Europe and Asia.
This coincides with a major disruption in television money as customers and marketing shifts from cable bundles to streaming apps. While schools form new alliances to grab for this money, some players now get their share of it through payment rights for use of their name, image, and likeness.
Moreover, recruits who don’t feel treated right can enter a transfer portal and find another school and play right away, something they couldn’t do in Harbaugh’s years as Wolverines’ quarterback.
The backdrop lurking to all this current turmoil is the relatively new industry of legalized gambling, a pursuit that tends to attract cocky young men who love sports. That demographic includes college athletes.
How long before greed seeps deeply into the very marrow of games played by student-athletes?
Harbaugh’s mess is a matter that will hurt his school more than it will hurt him. Whatever penalties are assessed — sooner or later — will quickly be overcome.
Remember the stink around the “Fab Five” of U-M basketball in the 1990s? That was worse and Michigan basketball survived the Fab Five. To put it in quarterback terms, this, too, shall pass.
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