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Latest Jim Harbaugh story: How he almost drowned his older brother in the ocean.

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Gobucks2204's picture
March 17, 2015 at 1:47am
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Harbaugh has become the gift that keeps on giving. Here is a story that John relates about Jim when they took a family vacation. Jim was in his mid to upper 20's at the time and playing for the Bears. I can understand rough housing with your brother when you are in you are in grade school or your teens but as a young professional. It seems bizarre to me. His early tenure has become a traveling carnival road show.

Here is John relating this publicly at a recent coaching clinic:

You can't make this stuff up:

Here is the link to the article, sorry for the length. I wanted to capture the story in its entirety.

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/jeff-seidel/2015/03/14/jeff...

"I was 27 or 28, coaching at the University of Cincinnati," John Harbaugh said on Friday, as he repeated the story publicly at Michigan's football clinic. "Jim was playing for the Bears. He decided to take us on a family vacation but he had an ulterior motive that I didn't know about."

They went swimming. Out in the water, Jim started grabbing at John, tugging at him, like brothers do.

"Next thing I know, pow, pow, boom," John Harbaugh said. "He's got me. Headlock. Over the top of his knee! Underwater! Ocean! Waves! Sand! Darkness!"

John gave up fighting. Jim, the younger brother by 15 months, had won.

"Underwater still," John said. "I'm down there — 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30. I don't know. Ten minutes, it seemed like."

John Harbaugh figured it was over. He was going to die right there, even though there were all of those witnesses. His younger brother had finally snapped. "I know he has it in him," John Harbaugh joked (I think). "Right when I think it's about to be over, he gets me up. Looks at me. I look at him."

John Harbaugh compared it to the moment when coaches shake hands after a game, at least from the perspective of the winning coach. "You kind of walk up to them and you are humble," John Harbaugh said. "You go over, 'Good game coach.'

"But there's that little moment when you look them in the eye, 'As long as we got that straight. We understand each other now.' "

That's the look Jim gave John in the ocean: "We got that straight."

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