Jim Harbaugh’s time may be running out as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, with the team set to miss the playoffs and Black Monday looming in the near future.
If that’s true, he’d exit without a Super Bowl victory—despite coaching the team to back-to-back-to-back NFC Championship game appearances.
And even though he’s yet to win a Super Bowl ring as the 49ers head coach, he still had plenty of success at the college level before coming to the NFL. As Stanford’s head coach, Harbaugh led the team to its first BCS bowl victory in program history (2011 Orange Bowl).
That’s not the only thing he managed to accomplish in four years as the team’s coach. He also reportedly smeared blood on his face to serve as war paint during a game in 2007. Before the matchup kicked off, he had reportedly said that if any player bled during the game, he wanted it on him. So that’s exactly what happened.
Max Cohen of The Michigan Daily retold the entertaining story in all its glory.
But in the game, right tackle Chris Marinelli ran off the field with the rest of his offense after a touchdown drive, his arm bloodied. He went straight to Harbaugh to show him.
Harbaugh looked at the blood and did exactly what he said he would. He took his hand and wiped it on Marinelli’s arm. The player’s blood was on the coach’s hands.
Then, Harbaugh took it a step further. He smeared Marinelli’s blood all over his own face like war paint.
“(Harbaugh is) standing on the sideline with the offensive line, really jacked up, screaming, yelling, jumping around with blood smeared on his face,” said Chase Beeler, one of the team’s offensive linemen.
This certainly sounds like something Harbaugh would do. And it likely fired his players up. Young athletes respond well to those types of gestures.