By Kyle Golik
The NCAA laid the hammer on former Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh for demonstrating both “unethical conduct” and a failure to promote “an atmosphere of compliance.” These are the results from an investigation into impermissible recruiting during a COVID-19 dead period in 2021 conducted by the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions.
As you read the findings in the 48-page document released by the NCAA, you begin to see what an unethical fraud Harbaugh is.
Harbaugh, when the time came to atone for his actions, contested the NCAA saying neither event of allowing recruits onto campus or meeting them at a local Ann Arbor diner ever happened. At the end of the day, what worse punishments could Harbaugh face with the NCAA had he said, “Yes, I was there.” This would have been over a long time and in the rearview mirror with Harbaugh getting a summary offense.
Instead of Harbaugh maintaining his ethics and abiding to a higher standard that he supposedly learned from his parents, being a “Michigan-Man,” and from Bo Schembechler – who always prefaced “The Team” and standards of being a “Michigan-Man,” Harbaugh lied and did not cooperate with the NCAA.
What Harbaugh was in violation of was R-2020-1, Resolution: Temporary Recruiting Dead Period Due to COVID-19 Pandemic. What the NCAA passed in March 2020 it remained consistent to Bylaw 13.2.5.5 which defines a recruiting dead period – “the dead period meant that all in-person recruiting contacts, on- and off-campus evaluations, and official and unofficial visits by prospects were prohibited. Prospects could take informal campus visits on their own, but institutional staff could have no involvement in arranging the visit.”
More Sports News
As the COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions began to lift across the country, but not by the NCAA, Harbaugh urged Michigan’s recruiting director to “get guys to campus.” Later in the testimony, Michigan’s recruiting director said the following, which should give you chills in regards to the Connor Stalions espionage matter, “the culture [in the football program] wasn’t to be safe, the culture was to go to the line and cross it if you had to.”
That is what is at heart of the matter, whether we are talking about the dead period recruiting violations Harbaugh committed, but as you look at the espionage perpetuated by Stalions and staff, you look at the circumstantial video evidence of Harbaugh and the team taking cues from Stalions, you begin to wonder if Harbaugh is as good as he claims to be?
When I think of Michigan, I always lean on Bo Schembechler, to me he represented everything great of being a “Michigan Man,” and is a pillar of virtue around Michigan.
One of my favorite Schembechler quotes are “In times of difficulty, those brave enough to stay the course will be victors in the end.”
I look at the Harbaugh situation, and all I can say are the words that come first to my mind are coward, fraud, skulduggery, deceitful, trickery, and swindling.
Harbaugh sold Michigan out and did whatever it took to win a national championship and beat Ohio State. The cost now is Michigan’s integrity. I can tell you Harbaugh doesn’t get any integrity, it wasn’t what I think he did in the Stalions espionage case. It isn’t how Harbaugh conducted himself during the NCAA investigation of the dead recruiting violations.
It’s from that Schembechler quote, Michigan is entering times of difficulty and Harbaugh wasn’t brave enough to stay, right the ship, and truly be victorious in the end. Harbaugh is not a ‘victor’ worth hailing to, he is simply a liar, a fraud, and everything bad about college football.
