Michigan Football: Harbaugh And The Football Factory

GBMWolverine Michigan Football TidbitsPosted at 5:15am — 4/27/2015

Michigan Wolverine Football: Harbaugh And The Football Factory

It seems too long ago that a poor boy named Charlie got a somewhat magical, mysterious, and hard to figure tour of a chocolate factory by the one and only eccentric Willie Wonka. That was quite a trip, and now Jim Harbaugh is off on several trips, to several states, for the purpose of spreading the good news about football through satellite camps. He has mentioned that football needs a good name. The content of study is not astronomy but football skills, schemes, and properly taught football techniques.

Now teaching information and skills, and providing opportunity to youngsters, sounds noble enough, but some believe Jimmy is well out of bounds. Perhaps, those displaying the greatest umbrage are mad because Jim Harbaugh is in bounds, that is, in bounds as in THEIR sphere of influence.

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One might (or might not) suggest that those displaying anguish are sticking up for the children, or for the young being overexposed to sports, or sensing some self-interest without a payback of benefit to the participants.

One might hail as noble the efforts of the offended, until the list of those offended is viewed. Then some skepticism might arise. Take a look at those who have publicly berated Harbaugh’s planned tour. They are certainly a high-end group of pure moralists; none of this crowd would ever put their own interests first, this group is pure ethics and always puts the need of student-athletes first, never themselves, and winning is only a secondary concern. Never would the thought of gaining an advantage ever enter their mindset.

And of course the league making the most noise models pure ethics in recruiting, in retaining athletes that do not quite meet the muster, and generously lets students finish their academic career on medical redshirt scholarships. The generosity and unique niceness of this group needs to be universally appreciated and applauded.

The evidence of the offended’ purist ethical behavior is the legislated mandate that football camps of these member institutions can only be held a few miles from the campus. Now, why is this so? One could say that this is indeed evidence of the purist ethics and student-centered philosophy of the offended. But a skeptic may actually posit that this rule is meant to keep the peace among the members and protect the home turf of member institutions from summer invasion of other kingdoms; kind of like the middle ages when all the little principalities sent envoys and kissed up, pledged allegiance, then plotted how to take over the allies territory and possessions.

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The offended parties appear to be placated by that most high of sports morality, the President of the NCAA. Look for the umbrage to cause rules to put into place to please the offended. Or the offended will change the rules themselves, not to gain any advantage, mind you, but instead to protect the purism of college athletes.

Harbaugh did not start this short-lived idea; Penn State will embark on a second year of satellite camping. But, the last few weeks have brought about a predictable assembling of the so-called media to put forks into Harbaugh’s carcass. It took little to predict the 49’ers would send some parting shots toward Harbaugh to an eager press. It was just as simple to predict a few power coaches from a certain power conference crying foul; one entity in particular seems outraged anytime something does not go his way across the entire spectrum of human endeavor.

Harbaugh was decried by at least one intellectual giant as being insane. It appears insanity by his/their very wide definition includes working people too hard and expecting too much. Would it not be interesting to have said intellectual giant write a scholarly article on insanity and present his credentials?

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Now, for Jim. He may have the advantage that the Big Ten schools can uproot and go to high school “satellite events” that the offended call pure recruiting and infer to be unsavory, perhaps even ridiculous. Harbaugh is presenting the camps as opportunities, and after the initial protest offered a nice title of Michigan as Exposure U. He also put the ball into the offended parties sphere by inviting them to be keynote speakers, since these disadvantaged coaching staffs cannot hold their own events far from campus. Hmmm, how about that- perhaps the offended could still hold their own camps and invite the entire world? After all, Harbaugh has essentially invited every staff in America to hold a role in the Exposure U events. That begs the question, would the moralists be so generous themselves?

We all need to salute the offended schools for this stand on morality, a morality based on what is best for them, not necessarily the hundreds of young campers who will undoubtedly come away better from being around Harbaugh and the legions of knowledgeable participants who teach and staff the events.

As for Jimmy, if this is insanity, keep going. If this is being eccentric, buy me a ticket to the village idiots’ convention. The offended are not oppressed, and their clear strategy will be to change the rules, one way or another, until the morality and fairness angle is once again tottering to their favor. Perhaps Willie’s sense of doing things may actually be more pure than the assembled grieved.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff — Doc4Blu

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