NFL Combine: Jim Harbaugh Leans on Judge Judy For Advice for Draft Prep
By Josh Hill
Ever since the Harbowl earlier in February at Super Bowl XLVII we’ve heard a lot about Jim Harbaugh’s influences in his coaching career. Bo Schembechler taught Jack Harbaugh and passed down all that combined coaching knowledge but when it comes to the NFL Combine and preparing for this April’s draft, Harbaugh is looking to a daytime television goddess for the advice he really needs: Judge Judy.
Harbaugh admitted that he’s a big fan of Judge Judy’s show and explained that he takes a lot of lessons on how to scout character from how Judy dishes out the law on her show.
“Somebody that’s not truthful, that’s big, to me,” the Harbaugh said. “I’m a big fan of the Judge Judy show. And when you lie in Judge Judy’s courtroom, it’s over. Your credibility is completely lost. You have no chance of winning that case. So I learned that from her.”
People are pointing to Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame linebacker who may or may not have lied to the entire world about his dead girlfriend in 2012, as one player that will be on Harbuagh’s hot seat more than anyone else at the Combine.
“It’s very powerful, and true. Because if somebody does lie to you, how can you ever trust anything they ever say after that? Ronald Reagan, another person of great wisdom and advice, ‘Trust but we will verify.’”
But while Te’o is the focus of recent scrutiny, Harbaugh says that with all the prospects he talks to, he’s going to dig deeper than what has just happened in that players life and speak to everyone they’ve ever had contact with to see who they really are as a person.
“You have to validate a meeting with a person or two or three conversations with their track record, their relationships with other people at their school, their teammates, their trainers, equipment managers, teachers, professors, their family. People usually leave a track record of success or failure or success and failure.”
The biggest nugget of news to take out of this is that Jim Harbaugh dedicates his lunchtime television viewing to the most famous celebrity judge of all-time.