Natasha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external forms of pleasure- balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters- but she never laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure times which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so uselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy. Laughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy, in face of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no man was more to her than Nastasya Ivanovna, the buffoon. Something stood sentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all the old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full of hope. The previous autumn, the hunting, "Uncle," and the Christmas holidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe were what she recalled oftenest and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at the time had not deceived her- that that state of freedom and readiness for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live on.
Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
In 2006, Michigan went into Ohio State weekend 11-0. Ohio State and Michigan were ranked #1 and #2, respectively, in national polls, meaning a ticket to the national championship was on the line. The media dubbed it “The Game of the Century.” That Friday, Bo Schembechler died, and approximately twenty-four hours later, Michigan lost a nail-biter at The Horseshoe on a controversial late hit flag.
Subsequently, the program imploded. The next fall, we endured — somehow — the ignominy of Appalachian State. The year after that, we went 3-8 in Rich Rodriguez’s first year at the helm; it qualified as the worst season in Michigan history. Denard Robinson was cool, but Rich Rod wasn’t so much. We ran him out of town. Brady Hoke showed up, after that. We fell out of national relevance while our two main rivals prospered to heights previously unimaginable.
Harbaugh’s extension can’t paralyze Michigan Football. Michigan Football is already paralyzed. We’re talking James Joyce Dubliners levels of paralysis.
On December 30, 2014, Jim Harbaugh received a savior’s welcome at Michigan. Support for him has been gradually waning ever since. Most fans have experienced the epiphany — that he’s mortal, after all — at some point. For some, it was his third, fourth, or fifth loss to Ohio State. The last one, a 56-27 thrashing at The Big House in 2019, demonstrated the enormity of the talent gap between the two programs in year five of the Harbaugh regime.
For many, including this fan, it was the 2020 Michigan State game, a game in which Michigan was a three-touchdown favorite. First-year Michigan State coach Mel Tucker outcoached Harbaugh outright. The loss to the Spartans illustrated, moreover, that Harbaugh teams still play with a country club mentality that has dogged the program for decades. In that regard, it exposed cultural deficiencies. Specifically, the loss proved the football team lacks the “all-in” program culture that Juwan Howard has been so successful in cultivating at Crisler Center.
Disconcertingly, many have pointed out that Harbaugh himself showed signs of apathy following the close loss to Ohio State in 2016. His enthusiasm and sideline antics noticeably mellowed, in 2017, suggesting the program’s malignancy is all-permeating.
Yet the same fans who have tired of Harbaugh feel, in large part, apathetic about Harbaugh’s 2021 extension. Who else can we get? The covid-shortened season and related restrictions certainly limited Michigan’s options, in that regard. Moreover, if Jim Harbaugh can’t build a contender at Michigan, who can? Does any of it really matter in the grand scheme of the cosmos? (Indeed, following particularly heart-wrenching losses, we’ve sunk to referencing Carl Sagan’s “The Pale Blue Dot” and pondering its nihilistic undertones).
Perhaps, in part, that apathy is a sign of the times. In the context of a global pandemic, the triviality of sports seems more readily apparent. Maybe it’s also the inevitable evolution of a sports fan, in terms of maturity.
Or maybe that’s only the case at Michigan, where football just doesn’t seem to matter as much as it once did. For the sake of his or her mental health, even the staunchest optimists must accept reality, eventually (read: after losing 15 of 16 to Ohio State). We’ve grown complacent, apathetic, dispassionate, jaded, stoic.
Mediocrity and apathy notwithstanding, Jim Harbaugh may still be a good college football coach. Undisputedly, he thrived at Stanford — though skeptics claim his success there boiled down to the good fortune of recruiting Andrew Luck — before taking the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII. He brought a semblance of stability and notoriety back to Michigan following the turbulent Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke eras, even if he’s failed to beat Ohio State or win a Big Ten title.
Perhaps, too, Michigan’s dismal 2-6 2020 season was a fluke. Chalk it up to injuries and opt-outs. If that is the case, Michigan’s agreement to extend Harbaugh provides him ample time to demonstrate as much. Unlike many other college football coaches, these days — including Rich Rod and Brady Hoke — he won’t be able to say he wasn’t given enough time to implement change.
Five-star recruit J.J. McCarthy, a 6’3 quarterback from La Grange Park, Illinois, enrolled early at Michigan this January. The fourth-ranked quarterback in his recruiting class, McCarthy played his senior year of high school football at the prestigious IMG Prep Academy in Florida; he led them to an undefeated season and a #1 ranking, nationally.
Many expect him to be Harbaugh’s saving grace, the quarterback recruit that finally pans out, long-term. Sports Illustrated is already speculating that he will be the 2021 starter. Others are clamoring for as much. McCarthy’s only been on campus a few weeks, but some have even wondered if he is the savior Michigan desperately needs.
Of course, Michigan fans have heard as much before (see: Shea Patterson, Brandon Peters, Joe Milton). But the hype surrounding McCarthy sounds different. Michigan.rivals.com alluded to McCarthy as “the chosen one” and compared him to Johnny Manziel, sans baggage. Recruiting profiles describe him as a charismatic leader and a tireless worker.
McCarthy’s potential alone sounds like a good enough reason to give Harbaugh another season. But there are other reasons for optimism. Harbaugh overhauled his staff, this offseason. Don Brown is out as defensive coordinator. Mike Macdonald, previously the linebackers coach for the Baltimore Ravens, fills that vacancy. Harbaugh also poached Ravens assistant Matt Weiss, who will coach the quarterbacks for Michigan. In that sense, McCarthy’s development will be in experienced hands. Changing up the recipe certainly can’t hurt.
If nothing works, Harbaugh’s new contract also provides Michigan a way out. One of the hidden details within the new contract pertains to Harbaugh’s buy-out clause. Under his first contract, Michigan would have had to pay Harbaugh about $10 million had they fired him during the 2020 season. The new contract reduces that number by more than half. Michigan can buy out the contract for $4 million in 2021. By 2022, that figure is reduced to $3 million; in 2023, it’s $2 million, and, in 2024, it’s only $1 million.
In that sense, there is an acknowledgment by both parties that Harbaugh didn’t live up to the expectations underlying his first contract. His base salary, reduced from more than $8 million in 2020 to $4 million for 2021, demonstrates as much. Incentives provide him the opportunity to earn an additional $1 million for winning a Big Ten title and $500,000 for making the College Football Playoff, among other bonuses.
Jim Harbaugh’s lackluster career at Michigan has made Michigan fans less rabid, but that doesn’t mean they’ll tolerate him forever. In fact, his extension only makes it easier for the university to part ways with its prototypical “Michigan Man”. In that scenario, Luke Fickell and Matt Campbell represent viable options to replace him.
Likely Harbaugh will be coaching for his job next season, though critics said the same thing about the 2020 season, a failure by any measure. The hype surrounding J.J. McCarthy suggests his emergence as the starting quarterback has the potential to salvage it. At the same time, a sixth loss to Ohio State might be the final nail in the coffin. Michigan hired Harbaugh for the specific purpose of beating Ohio State, and losing six of six to the Buckeyes could permanently stain his legacy. Hell, even Brady Hoke beat the Buckeyes once.
The recent success of Ryan Day at Ohio State epitomizes an increasing talent disparity between college football’s elite (see: Clemson, Bama, and Ohio State) and its pretenders. That, coupled with Harbaugh’s inability to institute cultural change within the program, heretofore, suggests that saving his job will be a tall task. Until Harbaugh can reverse those trends, or until Michigan determines he never will, Michigan fans are confined to a purgatory of perpetual nostalgia.
"An endless list of writers and painters and philosophers and scientists have been described as hermits, including Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Emily Bronte, and Vincent Van Gogh. Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, withdrew from public life for thirty years. 'All profound things,' he wrote, 'are preceded and attended by Silence.' Flannery O'Connor rarely left her rural farm in Georgia. Albert Einstein referred to himself as 'a loner in daily life.'
The American essayist William Deresiewicz wrote that 'no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude.' The historian Edward Gibbon said that 'solitude is the school of genius'. Plato, Descartes, Kierkegaard, and Kafka have all been described as solitaries. 'Not till we have lost the world,' Thoreau wrote, 'do we begin to find ourselves.'"
Michael Finkel
The Stranger in the Woods: the Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
"Much of the Irish landscape is dominated by peat bogs; the anaerobic and acidic conditions in the densely packed earth mean that the past in Ireland can be subject to macabre resurrection. Peat cutters occasionally churn up ancient mandibles, clavicles, or entire cadavers that have been preserved for millennia. The bodies date as far back as the Bronze Age, and often show signs of ritual sacrifice and violent death. These victims, cast out of their communities and buried, have surfaced vividly intact, from their hair to their leathery skin. The poet Seamus Heaney, who harvested peat as a boy on his family’s farm, once described the bogs of Ireland as 'a landscape that remembered everything that had happened in and to it.'"
Patrick Radden Keefe
Say Nothing: a True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
