Legendary Michigan coach Bo Schembechler always seemed to have a good story on hand, and Jim Harbaugh appears to be the exact same way.
On Saturday inside the Big House, Michigan hosted its Aerial Assault and Super Skills camp for high schoolers, and Harbaugh entertained the campers with a story before the event kicked off.
He explained that those present were the first ones to hear it – only because it had just occurred and therefore was “brand new,” which drew a few laughs.
Harbaugh told the kids how he had recently watched the 1944 film, “The Fighting Sullivans,” based on the true story of five brothers who grew up in Iowa during the Great Depression and then eventually World War II. All five wound up being killed in action, and Harbaugh described an emotional scene in which the father was informed of each son’s death.
“Think of yourselves as the Fighting Sullivans,” Harbaugh told the young campers. “Come out here today and get better. Remember when you walk up to the line of scrimmage from drill to drill, walk up there with a fighter’s walk. That’s what we’re looking for.
“If something seems like fun today – if you’re thinking ‘it’d be fun to get on my phone right now, it’d be fun to crack some jokes, or it’d be fun to squirt some water on somebody’ – if it’s fun, avoid it. We’re coming out here to get better. We’re serious about being a better football player, in which you can go back and help your team.”
Harbaugh’s no-nonsense, fighter’s mentality mindset has clearly rubbed off on redshirt junior quarterback Wilton Speight. The veteran is making a point of taking that next step forward, and becoming the best player he can possibly be. Just because it’s the offseason doesn’t mean he’s not working ridiculously hard.
“If we get some down time, we’re still always active and still doing a lot of stuff,” Speight explained.
Harbaugh’s passing game coordinator throughout his first two years in Ann Arbor, Jedd Fisch, left in January to take the offensive coordinator position on Jim Mora’s staff at UCLA. Speight is transitioning well, though, to new quarterback coach Pep Hamilton, who came in from the Cleveland Browns to serve as Fisch’s replacement.
“I learned an incredible amount from Coach Fisch in two years, but I’m also learning an incredible amount from Coach Pep in the first four or five months,” Speight said. “I just feel very blessed to be the quarterback here, and to be a product of my environment and learn as much as I can.”
If he wins the starting job once again in 2017, the redshirt junior will have plenty of new faces to throw the ball to. Though the receiving corps is filled with almost nothing but inexperience, Speight feels good about the position, having already worked with early enrollee freshmen Donovan Peoples-Jones and Tarik Black.
“They’re [Peoples-Jones and Black] both very freaky,” Speight said with a laugh. “All the other new kids coming in are extremely talented as well. So I’m excited about how deep we are [at the position.]”
There's no telling what the team could accomplish in 2017 if every player comes in with a "Fighting Sullivans" mentality.
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