The PR pitch hit the inbox with an alluring subject line: “Coach Harbaugh interview?” When Jim Harbaugh is being made available, you always take the interview. Because you never know what the Michigan football coach is going to say.
Harbaugh was making the media rounds in a partnership with Wolverine boots and SkillsUSA, which promotes trade and technical schools. SkillsUSA was having a “signing day” to raise awareness of trade schools as an educational and vocational alternative to four-year colleges. The nation certainly needs all the qualified auto mechanics and plumbers it can get, and Harbaugh is an appropriate pitchman, given his embrace of a roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic that goes along with football.
After discussing the project at hand, the logical question to ask was this: If Harbaugh hadn’t gone to Michigan and become a famous football player and coach, what skilled trade would he have undertaken?
“A lawnsman!” Harbaugh enthusiastically responds. “That’s what I do. Mowing the lawn is one of the great feelings I have in life.”
If a list existed of the richest Americans who still cut their own grass, Harbaugh might be on it. He made $10 million in 2022, according to reports, but says he’s still out there tending to his own yard.
“It accomplishes three things,” Harbaugh says. “I’m clearing my mind or thinking of new plays; I feel good about what I accomplish; and I either make money or I save money.”
The Harbaugh story is dotted with lawn-mowing tales, often serving as context for working one’s way through life. When he faced off against big brother John as coaches in Super Bowl XLVII 12 years ago, there were stories about old debates regarding who cut the small family front yard and who cut the larger backyard, for example. His daughter, Grace, had a short video clip of her dad mowing the grass on TikTok before the family vacation last year.
The 59-year-old has made one concession to age and time management, buying a riding mower. But he still embraces the job and wants to know why the youth of America aren’t joining him in this noble pursuit.
“It makes me sad sometimes when I drive around Ann Arbor,” Harbaugh says. “It used to be kids mowing the lawns. I was that kid, out mowing lawns, earning some money. Now it’s a truck and a crew at every house.”
As Harbaugh mows his way through this summer, big expectations will hover over him. The coach himself has said he has his best team yet at Michigan, and that’s after going 25–3 over the past two seasons. The Wolverines could start the 2023 season ranked No. 1.
Is this the year they’ll win a national championship?
“Fate is in our hands,” Harbaugh says. “I firmly believe we have the license and the ability to do it.”
