By Camille Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 25, 2008
The cosmetic changes new Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh has made can be seen throughout the team's training facility in Owings Mills, Md.
The locker room has been reorganized. Players are no longer grouped by position. An oversize pair of glowing, fiery orange eyes stares out from the wall of the weight room, surrounded by the words "Attitude-Compete-Physical-Fast-Relentless-Finish." A plaque next to the door in the locker room reads "Team Team TEAM."
"Why did we do all that?" Harbaugh asked. "So they can see every day what the value system is, and be reminded of it."
Harbaugh, of course, is the biggest change for the Ravens, who began training camp Tuesday. The career assistant coach was hired to replace Brian Billick, who guided the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory in 2001 but was fired after a disappointing 5-11 finish last season. So far Harbaugh, 45, has brought energy and enthusiasm.
"There's still a lot to be seen, and guys are still trying to figure him out," veteran place kicker Matt Stover said in early June. "I think that's the biggest thing: There's that big, huge question mark out there in players' minds. Let's really get to know John."
Harbaugh, in his 24 years of coaching collegiately and professionally, is a head coach for the first time. He spent nine seasons coaching special teams for the Philadelphia Eagles, and while that experience helped prepare him for this, it wasn't why the Ravens' front office chose Harbaugh to replace Billick.
"I think the reason that Mr. [Steve] Bisciotti, Ozzie Newsome and Dick Cass gave me the opportunity is they could see intuitively that I was in line with what they're thinking," said Harbaugh, referring to Baltimore's owner, general manager and president. "You've got to respect the organization. I think that's why I was hired, because we're coming from the same place."
Bisciotti, who was making his first head coaching hire as an owner, was looking for a leader, a consensus builder and someone who shared his belief that leadership ought to be inclusive.
"There's a great quote from Warren Bennis, in a book called 'On Becoming a Leader.' He said leadership is like beauty. It's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it," Bisciotti said. "That's what John showed. He showed that hard-to-describe quality of, 'I would like to be led by this guy.' "
Harbaugh is affable and approachable. Every year at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, he and Jerry Rosburg, a longtime friend who coached special teams with the Cleveland Browns and the Atlanta Falcons, would go out for breakfast after the special teams prospects weighed in. They'd start out at the RCA Dome with two or three people, but by the time they reached the restaurant, the party inevitably would have tripled or quadrupled, and an hour would have elapsed.
"That's because he stops and talks to everybody," said Rosburg, who is now the Ravens' special teams coordinator. "He's like the Pied Piper."
Shortly after he was hired in January, Harbaugh met with as many players as he could. But after those more formal introductory meetings, he made a point of engaging players in casual conversations. The whole point was to try to get players to feel comfortable and be themselves.
"I can honestly say that I've probably talked to him more than I ever talked to Billick in my four years," defensive tackle Dwan Edwards said. "He will ask you your opinion on things, see what you like and what you don't like, which is nice. You kind of feel appreciated, like your opinion matters."
Harbaugh has made plenty of changes. Game jerseys replaced the looser, more comfortable mesh shirts the players used to wear in practice. Veterans will be required to stay at the team hotel in Westminster, Md., for the duration of training camp. Players are allowed to wear only stud earrings under their helmets -- no hoops or anything that dangles. That last rule caused some groans from the players when it was announced.
"Well, [veteran special teams ace] Gary Stills has these little teeny hoop earrings, and they're the only ones he ever wears," Bisciotti said. "John immediately looked at the crowd and said, 'All right, everybody in favor of an exception for Gary Stills?' And everybody agreed and started laughing, and he goes, 'Okay, Gary Stills is grandfathered in. Nobody else can wear anything other than studs.'
"It's like he comes up with a rule, and it means something to him, but then he realizes that as a leader you have to be a student. . . . When I heard what had happened, I was like, 'All right, he gets it.' "
White, five-inch binders sit on two shelves inside Harbaugh's office, each one clearly labeled down the spine, and each filled with hundreds of carefully organized pages. Many contain Harbaugh's football notes; he is constantly writing in every meeting, whether it's a pass protection meeting run by offensive line coach John Matsko or an hour-long job interview with Bisciotti. Said Harbaugh, "That's how I learn."
Several binders are marked "MOTIVATIONAL" and contain a hodgepodge of articles and quotes that inspired Harbaugh. A New York Times story about Jets safety Abram Elam, who lost three siblings in tragic circumstances, for instance, is followed by a daily devotional Harbaugh thought was apt: Philippians 4:6, which deals with anxiety.
Next is a Newsweek column by George Will entitled "Caesaropapism Rampant" -- "It's about our expectations for a president, and I thought it was interesting from a leadership standpoint," said Harbaugh, who majored in political science -- and then an article detailing the pros and cons of a 17-game season.
"That's the one thing about John: He's been preparing for this job for a long time," said Rosburg, who gave Harbaugh the Will column. "It's not like this is suddenly thrust upon him, and he doesn't know what to do with it."
Indeed, Harbaugh knows exactly what he wants to do with it, after spending much of his life around the sport and the men who coach it. He describes himself as "kind of a football historian," and lists two men as his primary influences: his father Jack, a coach for 41 years, and Eagles Coach Andy Reid, with whom he spent the past 10 seasons.
Reid's impact is more easily documented. One of the binders on Harbaugh's shelf is entitled "ANDY REID," and it contains a copy of Reid's famous notebook, which is essentially a template for building a football organization. The two talk regularly, and Harbaugh has started keeping a daily journal, at Reid's suggestion.
It was also Reid who encouraged Harbaugh to switch from coordinating special teams -- where he was widely considered to be among the best in the league -- to secondary coach, in order to broaden his résumé and become a more attractive head coaching candidate.
Jack Harbaugh's influence is harder to spot. Much of John's childhood was spent in Ann Arbor, Mich., where his father was an assistant to Bo Schembechler at Michigan. John and his younger brother Jim -- the former Ravens quarterback who is now the head coach at Stanford -- used to spend hours at practice, or watching film with Jack, or just hanging out in Schembechler's office.
Harbaugh, in fact, keeps Schembechler's book on leadership, "Bo's Lasting Lessons," on a shelf in his office -- it sits alongside works by Ronald Reagan and Lee Iacocca, the former Chrysler chairman -- and he gave a copy to each of his assistants. Bisciotti, in turn, gave Harbaugh a summer reading assignment of his own: "Danger in the Comfort Zone," by Judith M. Bardwick.
"It's one of my favorite books," Bisciotti said. "It's about leading people to their highest level of productivity, and that comes from the perfect balance between entitlement and fear. If you push people to the point of fear, they become less productive. And if you don't put any fear in them and they gain a sense of entitlement, then they produce less."
It sounds like an appropriate choice for a man who is taking over a veteran team that finished last in the AFC North a year after going 13-3 and winning the division. Fourteen of Baltimore's starters, including 10 on defense, were on that 13-3 team.
"We're not trying to change the culture. We're trying to bring out the culture," Harbaugh said. "We want the real Ravens to emerge."
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