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Michigan Wolverine Football: Jim Harbaugh – The Mechanist Takes Over

By Eroc Wolverine

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GBMWolverine Michigan Football TidbitsPosted at 7:00am — 2/25/2015

Michigan Wolverine Football: Jim Harbaugh – The Mechanist Takes Over

Series Finale: Part I of IV

The first parts of the Moving In series highlighted the building of a new staff, the recruits coming in, and discussed possibilities and likelihoods regarding what remains of the offensive and defensive personnel. The final series component, The Mechanist Takes Over, will examine the impact of Coach Jim Harbaugh from a worldview of Mechanism as the program moves forward.

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The apparatus choice for this examination becomes the philosophical worldviews as detailed by Dr. Stephen Pepper. The choice and implementation of worldview is more than theory, this phenomenon has been demonstrated to explain and justify strategies and decisions that define program implementation: from business, to psychological study, to about anything else. Discussion of worldview is not common within the sports empire, but this does not discount any potential value for analysis and explanation of implemented actions of a football staff, particularly its head administrators.

Many readers may recall last year’s annual scholarly series, “Peppered Football,” where the actions and preferences of Coach Hoke, and the overall effect on the program, were examined. This series may be located and viewed in the GBMWolverine Archives.

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A short refresher about, or initial foundation explanation of, Pepper’s theory is appropriate. Pepper identified six worldviews, two of which he rejected as not being of practical use in seeking the truth. The four accepted worldviews (or world hypotheses) are Formism, Mechanism, Contextualism, and Organicism.

The formist bases strategy and actions on a strong belief system, ideas and underlying concepts greatly matter, that is, these tenets become a preference for viewing the world. The mechanist, conversely, is a precise, data driven, performance-seeking type, who values parts and accepts for inclusion parts that function. The team, the team, the team is really the machine.

The mechanist is not really a sum of the parts is greater than the whole type; instead, the mechanist is concerned about individual parts within a system and will remove a part before modifying a system placate the problematic part.

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    • The latter, modifying a system to benefit available parts, is the role of the contextualist. This approach can certainly work, but to the mechanist this approach is not preferred. The contextualist is pragmatic and flexible. Coach Beilein has proven to be a very good contextualist coach, he does as well as anyone could expect when dealing with fluid situations that demand flexibility and alternative actions. Bill Belichick, Bob Knight, and the legendary Bo Schembechler are not contextualists.

    The organicist type is the creator, the coach who finds the new, unique, and sometimes better way of doing something. Most coaches are copycats, but there are the truly unique pioneers that change or have changed football. Two names that come to mind are Sid Gillman and Paul Brown when defining cutting edge and long-lasting change.

    All football coaches, by nature and demand of the job, must practice the mechanistic view. But the true worldview is defined by preference of action. Former Coach Brady Hoke was a clear and proud formist. Hoke had true beliefs and underlying foundations that were incorporated as program ideals. His slogan that appears to have survived his end of tenure, “This is Michigan,” was well accepted by many and somewhat reviled by some as participating in convenient arrogance. But make no mistake; this was the expression of a formist type.

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    Written by GBMWolverine Staff — Doc4Blu

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