The Only Thing: Jim Harbaugh's Success All That Matters

Bleacher Report wrote in 2012,

The point at which the world of professional sports diverges from the reality you and I know is how much a team is willing to tolerate if a player can help them win. There are countless examples of players whose bad behavior is overlooked as long as they produce. Once the points start to decline; when the 40 time starts to tick up...that's when bad behavior shifts from "disappointing" to "unacceptable."

So... as long as someone is contributing to your winning ways, you keep him. While he has the talent to help your organization, his personality and approach should not be criticized.

According to popular media and the fans who cannot think for themselves, this is the conclusion when it comes to San Francisco 49er head coach Jim Harbaugh.

But if you are going to say that about Harbaugh... if you want to say winning isn't everything, it's the only thing... then say it for athletes who do dumb, even criminal things.

Yea, an also-ran player who can't get it done on the court or field -- get rid of him, when he runs up against the law or is even just shown to have a bad attitude, isn't that right? However, an athlete who can go into beast mode should be "acceptable," no matter what.

Say it's all about winning instead of being furious at Ray Lewis for ten years after his blood-soaked night. Say that about Michael Vick and his dogs, instead of being angry that the NFL allowed him another chance... or about any number of troubled athletes with elite talent.

 

"But Harbaugh hasn't done anything to break a law or be moronic," you might say, "he is just hard to get along with. That's not really a problem."

 

Then why are Terrell Owens and Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson so despised? Why do NBA fans have such a love-hate relationship with the do-it-my-way Allen Iverson?

 

"Those guys didn't help their teams win."

Really? Their on-the-field numbers were pretty amazing. Whether you think they were too individualistic in play or personal behavior is simply your opinion.

"Yea, but... they blew up locker rooms, they were not 'team guys', they were distractions."

 

So Harbaugh's Chucky, Junior act isn't a distraction? So the reports that the coach "wears people out" and seems to not care about the defensive half of his team is team-friendly? Why would the Niner organization allow all of these negative stories to leak out about him if there wasn't fire beneath the smoke?

"Coach Harbaugh wins everywhere he goes and wins immediately. The University of San Diego won conference titles under his leadership. Stanford went from being dogs to humiliating Pete Carroll's USC Trojans at USC. And now Harbaugh has brought the Niners to the brink of three consecutive Super Bowls! He was one play away from winning one of them!"

And to do that, he has shown himself to be someone who is divisive and nearly impossible to get along with.

"Come on, man. Use wisdom. All successful men are tortured by the need to dominate. All powerful people are Type A personalities.  You deal with that to get what you want."

Okay, but who draws that line of what to accept, and how much?

This is not picking on Jim Harbaugh. If the everyday person's words, actions and attitudes were picked apart the way sports celebrities get dissected, few would escape unscathed. It is meant to poke at us, sports fans who have these weird standards that are just indefensible.

The bottom line is: We are in a culture where anything can be justified if we like the person. Right now, Harbaugh still is liked by most media talking heads and football fanatics. He is a "winner," and until that perception shifts (likely because of the same press that now deifies his coaching success), the answer we will hear is, Keep him and dump anyone in his way.

NBA Eastern Conference Finals 2001: Philadelphia @ Milwaukee, Game Six (Pt. 1)



Ray Allen

With all the Miami Heat hype, people forget that there was a Big Three just ten years ago, because we are amnesiacs.

There have actually been several "Big Threes" in NBA history who aren't remembered by that name, except by old timers. The McHale-Parish-Bird era in Boston comes to mind as one of the all-time best trios.

More recently, before LeBron, Wade, and Bosh in Miami... and even before the Boston Celtics glued Allen, Garnett and Pierce together in the mid-Aughts... the Milwaukee Bucks did it.

 

They even used a piece that the C's would later grab: Ray Allen. With "Big Dog" Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell, the trio was dubbed, yes, The Big Three.

The 2001 Bucks meet up with Allen Iverson's Philadelphia 76ers, in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Allen Iverson

Iverson carried Philly's B-minus/C-plus squad through the '00-01 season, scoring in clumps and dazzling fans in his fifth season. "The Answer" averaged 31 points a game over the regular season, adding 4.6 assists and 2.5 steals (along with about 3 turnovers). He raised his scoring by a point in these playoffs, and assists by almost two.

Game Six finds the Sixers leading the series 3-2, and rolling into Milwaukee after a comeback in Game Five.

So it is a typical match-up, familiar to long-time sports fans, between a high-scoring threat who swallows the basketball like a black hole... and a group of slightly-lesser talents who are still excellent...