Michigan Football: Rome Day Four — A Meeting With The Pope

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Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh met Pope Francis and presented him with a pair of Jordan shoes and a winged helmet.

"I've never seen my husband at a loss for words," Harbaugh's wife, Sarah, told Angelique Chengelis of the Detroit News. "I was crying. I was trying to breathe. It was surreal."

Harbaugh recapped the experience after the event.

"He looked at the helmet and took the pair of Jordan sneakers, a box with a helmet on top. He took it, smiled and nodded his head and then gave it to somebody next to him," Harbaugh said with a grin.

He called the trip "better than I could have hoped for."

Grant Newsome and Salim Makki accompanied Harbaugh initially, Chengelis reported, but because there was not enough space in the other seating area, they could not join him.

“It’s amazing,” Newsome said, as he walked through St. Peter’s Square.

Harbaugh said meeting the Pope was a surreal experience.

"It was beautiful. His smile, the way he talks is peaceful; it's calm," Harbaugh said. "It felt like this is what it would be like to meet Jesus Christ. That's what it felt like to me. Very emotional.

"My wife came in and told the Holy Father that she loved him. He held her hand, they prayed. and then he asked that we pray for him and don't forget. That was very emotional."

He spent the next several hours trying to figure out what to do next.

"I've been trying to figure it out what the experience means, what I'm supposed to do with it," he said. "At least he gave me the marching orders to pray for him, so I have that part of it down."

Harbaugh's infant son, John, will be baptized on Sunday at the Vatican, and his 8-year-old daughter Addie will have her first communion.

Harbaugh met a young MSU reporter. "That's okay," he said. "Big Ten ... Big Ten."

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