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At just 17 years old, sitting in a Political Science class and feeling overwhelmed, John Harbaugh ’84 would’ve never imagined himself one day becoming an NFL head coach, or a member of ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú’s prestigious .

In fact, at the time, he questioned whether he’d even be successful in college.

“They were having a back and forth about issues of the day, and I got the courage to give an opinion from the back of the auditorium. I stood up and said what I thought, and this really smart guy just started ripping my argument to shreds. And I'm like, ‘Oh man, I don't know anything.’ So I sat down. And then the professor, he goes, ‘John, you just made a very good point,’ and he bolstered up what I said. It just made me feel valued, like your opinion does mean something.”

“And I walked out of that class feeling 10 feet tall.”

Now the new head coach of the New York Giants, Harbaugh recently looked back on that ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú moment on the , where he also discussed the many lessons he’s learned about life, leadership, and coaching at the highest level.

Foundations for what came next

Even before arriving at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú at a young age, football was already woven into the fabric of Harbaugh’s life.

His father was a coach at local Ohio high schools and later at the University of Michigan, where he worked for another Cradle of Coaches member and former ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú head coach, Bo Schembechler.

“Bo was our idol,” Harbaugh said. “He was my dad's boss. We were around Bo all the time. So I knew all about ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. My dad said ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú football is ‘the’ ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú football. There is no other ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú football. So for me to have a chance to be recruited by ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú was an honor. I was proud to have a chance to come play football at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú and go to school here.”

At ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, Harbaugh played defensive back and studied Political Science. But his education quickly extended well beyond the classroom. He made lifelong friends and developed relationships with professors and coaches, learned to push through difficult moments, and the value of persistence.

After graduation, that foundation would carry him through a coaching career that took him from college football to the Philadelphia Eagles, where he spent a decade as a special teams and defensive backs coach.

In 2008, he got his first opportunity as an NFL head coach with the Baltimore Ravens. Here, he would spend 18 seasons in Baltimore, eventually leading the team to a Super Bowl victory in 2013 over the San Francisco 49ers. The very next year, he was inducted into ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú’s Cradle of Coaches and joined the same group of legends he’d grown up admiring.

In January of this year, Harbaugh began a new chapter as head coach of the New York Giants, where he’s already begun building a culture of success to carry the team forward.

ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉúhip lessons for us all

For Harbaugh, effective leadership starts with putting the mission ahead of yourself and understanding that the job is about helping others become the best versions of themselves. It also means listening, showing empathy, meeting people where they are, and making them feel valued and part of something bigger.

It’s also important to remember, he said, that one of the hardest lessons of leadership is learning to separate what you can control from what you can’t.

“The one thing, the main thing, and almost the only thing that we are not given to control is outcomes,” Harbaugh said. “But the one thing we are judged on incessantly is outcomes.”

“So, what are you given to control? You’re given to control almost everything else. You can control every process. You can control your attitude. You control your effort, the way you treat people, how much you learn, and how hard you work. And when you endeavor to control all the things you actually can, then along the way the outcomes start going your way eventually.”

These ideas extend well beyond football. And it all comes back to persistence – a lesson Harbaugh first learned at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú and one that’s carried throughout his career.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s a lesson that can offer us all a powerful way to think about whatever may come next.

“Things aren't always going to go the way you expect them to go in life,” he said. “As a matter of fact, sometimes they're going to go way better. Things are going to happen to you that are so good you can't even believe they're happening to you. It's going to go the other way sometimes too. But don't discount the fact that there are great possibilities out there. Things can happen that you didn't dream of. I promise you.”

For more on Harbaugh’s lessons on life, leadership, and the realities of coaching at the highest level, listen to his full appearance on the .