The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/575020
time — John Ghindia gave Chris Balas, from The Wolverine, some information to write a story about their recruitment of Jim Harbaugh. On December 3, 2014, Balas' readers were treated to a piece titled, "Ma- ma's calling Jim Harbaugh," which started with an epigraph from Paul "Bear" Bryant, explaining why he had to leave Texas A&M after just four years to return to Alabama, his alma mater: "Momma called, and when Momma calls, you just have to come running." "Five-plus decades later," Balas wrote, "Momma's on the line again — this time though, she's calling from her cell, not a rotary, and from Ann Arbor. She's ringing San Fran- cisco and Jim Harbaugh, former U-M quarterback and current 49ers head coach for the second time in four years, and while he didn't answer last time, the timing might not be better." Just a few months earlier, when Anson had introduced Harbaugh on the SS Boike as "the only man in the history of the University of Michi- gan's venerated football program whose manifest destiny it is to coach Michigan," you probably couldn't find enough people in America who believed it could happen to fill that boat. Even Anson thought it was a pipe dream, until his talk with Har- baugh that night. True, a lot of people did a lot of work behind the scenes to increase the odds, and crucially, Lloyd Carr publicly and privately encouraged Harbaugh's return, and urged his former players to do the same. But they still needed a lot of breaks just to make it possible. In Ann Arbor, the departures of Brandon and Hoke were essential, of course. But in San Francisco, Michi- gan fans had some unlikely, unwit- ting, allies. "No one," Anson told me, "could have orchestrated the perfect storm of bad management with the 49ers, and then at Michigan, too. Those both played right into our hands." The lucky breaks didn't stop there. Jay Flannelly, the former team manager turned dishwasher at Pizza House, known as "The Beav" by the former players, knew he could ask Tom Brady for almost anything — except after a loss. The Sunday after the Michigan–Ohio State game, No- vember 30, the Patriots suffered only their third defeat of the season at Green Bay. Flannelly wasn't going to bother asking a favor after that one. But on December 7, the Patriots got back to their winning ways in San Diego, beating the Chargers, 23–14, to go 10–3 on the season. The Beav sprang into action. "The Pats won, and Tom played great," Flannelly told me. "So after the game's over, I'm e-mailing Tom. I congratulate him on the win. He replies, 'Hey, we won, we played great.' Then I ask him to call Har- baugh and give Tom his number. Tom says, 'Coach Harbaugh is the kind of guy we need.' "Next day, Ghindy tells me Tom called Jim and talked for two hours. Okay, that's really cool." "Tom Brady," Ghindia says, "has as much to do with Harbaugh com-