Jim Harbaugh turns down Michigan football immortality to chase a different dream

Well, coach, you could have been a legend, a god even in Ann Arbor.

You could have walked the same path as the giants who proceeded you. Bo Schembechler. Fielding Yost. Fritz Crisler.

You could have become the first Michigan football coach in 90 years to win a second national championship.

You only needed to endure. Maybe some sanctions and suspensions from the NCAA. Maybe a little tsking from the infallible people who occupy the upper reaches of the administration and athletics departments. But you could have endured.

Instead, we have this. We have Jim Harbaugh leaving the place he was born to be, where he experienced a renaissance that wasn’t always artful or easy but that ultimately remade him into a hot, marketable commodity, which is what the NFL always desires and what the Chargers surely will pursue again after he wears out his Los Angeles welcome in a few years.

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Of course, everything is rosy right now. The Chargers got their man and photoshopped a bolt on Harbaugh’s hat Wednesday night faster than Connor Stalions could find a Central Michigan cap.

“Jim Harbaugh is football personified,” Chargers owner Dean Spanos said in a statement, “and I can think of no one better to lead the Chargers forward.”

President of football operations and Dean’s kid, John Spanos, chimed in: “You need a team. And nobody has built a team more successfully, and repeatedly, in recent history than Jim Harbaugh. His former players swear by him, and his opponents swear at him. Jim is one of one, and we couldn't be more excited to have him back in the Chargers organization as our head coach.”

In separate released statements, U-M athletic director Warde Manuel and president Santo Ono thanked Harbaugh and wished him well.

Manuel made sure to say the school had been “discussing a new contract that would make Jim the highest paid coach in college football,” and Ono started off by noting that the school had been in talks with Harbaugh “for the last several weeks and have tried our best to retain him as our football coach.”

So, you know, not our bad!

Of course, no mention by Manuel or Ono of any extra clauses that would make his firing harder if the NCAA brought down the hammer this season.

Harbaugh, of course, was typical Harbaugh, offering baked-in platitudes while noting, “I’ll always be a Wolverine,” and thanked the Chargers and the Spanoses.

Do you know who Harbaugh didn’t thank? Not a single person at Michigan. Not Manuel, not Ono. After nine years at Michigan, he didn’t thank one person in the statement released by the Chargers?

Maybe thanking people at U-M will come later. But the fact it didn’t come at all during a departure that’s been days if not weeks in the making? Well, silence speaks volumes, doesn’t it? And in this case it has to be taken as a deafening indictment of the way he felt he was treated during the low points.

So who wins in this whole Harbaugh tug-o-war?

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Does Harbaugh win because he gets a chance to win a Super Bowl after coming so close and losing to his brother in the title game?

Does Michigan win because the whiplash-inducing Harbaugh era is over, but concludes by re-establishing a proud program that looks primed to be handed over to top lieutenant Sherrone Moore? Perhaps a new era that features all the winning with half the drama and twice the cussing?

Actually, neither.

Harbaugh is a great coach. But he’s a very unique and acquired taste — one that billionaire tycoons always think they can tame or at least tolerate. But that’s only true if winning is involved, and even then it might not matter.

Don’t forget the Chargers are a historically horrible franchise. Laughingstocks, actually. They used to get outdrawn in their own San Diego stadium by San Diego State. Harbaugh, Justin Herbert and a Super Bowl title aren’t going to change the fortunes of a team that’s once again playing second banana to another team in its own stadium.

Michigan? Couldn’t keep your man, eh? Not a good look. Got your natty and now what? Maybe Moore will work out, but if he’s really the answer why isn’t anyone else knocking down his door?

And speaking of that natty, did anyone at Michigan besides the merch vendors get to enjoy such a short ride? Harbaugh went from celebration to NFL interviews faster than a disloyal spouse goes from winning the lottery to thumbing through dating apps.

Let’s face it. There’s only one true, undeniable winner in this whole episode: Ryan Day. Welcome back to third base, coach.

Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Only one winner after Jim Harbaugh leaves Michigan football for NFL