The night before John Harbaugh’s first regular-season game as New York Giants head coach, the 87-year-old football lifer who raised him stood before the team and talked about respect.
Jack Harbaugh, who won a Division I-AA national championship at Western Kentucky in 2002, addressed the Giants in a Saturday night meeting ahead of their Week 1 matchup with the Dallas Cowboys. The speech lasted 10 to 15 minutes. Tight end Chris Manhertz said the room went stone-cold silent.
Jack told a story about Muhammad Ali, whom he called the most competitive athlete he had known. He described Ali’s 1967 fight against Ernie Terrell in the Houston Astrodome, when Ali punished Terrell for refusing to use his chosen name and demanded an answer in the ring.
“So I
talked to the players about respect,” Jack Harbaugh said, via The Athletic. “You can’t ask for it, you can’t pray for it, and you can’t expect it. You’ve got to reach out and you’ve got to demand it. … When you line up over a guy, you’ve got to look him in his eye and say, ‘What’s my name? You’re going to respect me before this is all over.’”
The message landed.
“For Coach Harbaugh to have his father address the team before his first game in a new organization shows how much respect he has for his father,” Manhertz said. “It definitely resonated with us. He had a lot of juice and energy for an 87-year-old man, and it was really about earning respect — not asking for it or begging for it — with your style of play. He’s a good storyteller, and he had us glued to our seats.”
Jack said he did not see intimidation in the players’ eyes, even after years of losing and a long history of coming up short against Dallas. The next night, the Giants beat the Cowboys, 28-20, at MetLife Stadium on Sunday Night Football.
After the win, John Harbaugh handed his father a game ball and credited him for the pregame motivation. Jack called the performance more than a victory. He called it dominance.
The weekend carried extra weight in New York. The game fell near the 25th anniversary of September 11, and a pregame ceremony honored victims and first responders. Driving in, Jack was struck by how close the stadium sat to the city skyline and by what those heroes had done.
When John considered leaving Baltimore for the Giants job last winter, Jack had already framed the opportunity in similar terms: If his son could put this franchise in a better position, that would be an accomplishment for him and for New York. Saturday night, the father put that standard in front of the players themselves.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Jack Harbaugh delivered powerful speech to New York Giants before Week 1
