Jim Harbaugh is National Lampoon’s Van Wilder.
Specifically, he’s Wilder at the dinner party where Tara Reid’s character (Gwen) has to deal with him impromptu showing up when she’s supposed to be enjoying an upper class evening with her stuck up baggish boyfriend and family.
In the end, free wheeling, under-dressed, future-less Wilder ends up getting the old stuffy folks to do jello shots off of one another and get laughing hysterically, a completely unexpected consequence.
At any rate, Harbaugh may have come out on the losing end of the satellite camp ban decision, even though votes from places like the Sun Belt and Mountain West were akin to, “hey, vote for this and we’ll hike your taxes up 30 percent!” “Really? Cool! I’m in!”
The runoff of the decision, though, is that Harbaugh continues to look like a visionary and now, a renegade for the under-exposed, disenfranchised camp star who probably will end up liking the idea that this guy was out there with this idea to make satellite camps bigger than they’ve ever been, only to see it ripped from his abilities by the “establishment.”
Harbaugh looks like the People’s Champ, and when the dust settles, that will help him as this is all over.
It’s not that Harbaugh needs help, nor was that an intended consequence of satellite camps and the residual effect of them being banned. If Jim had his druthers, everyone would have bound together for some common sense ruling to tell the ACC and SEC to suck it up and work harder if they want the players to stay home. After all, they still have the geographic advantage.
Instead, the rest of the conferences not named the Big Ten took the paper across their desk and gave it a quick look over and just rubber stamped what the others preferred without taking any consideration or nuance into it.
Why didn’t someone stand up and say, “wait, why do we need to rule on this now? Absent the fact that it sucks for players, especially low income ones, can we compile some data that suggests we need to do away with these for a particular reason?”
With none of that being done, Harbaugh in particular stands to benefit. As recruits and their families took to social media to decry the decision, it became clear that in this “everyone has a voice so long as they can turn on a computer and type coherent sentences” world we live in, there’s a real and genuine grassroots anger behind this decision.
Harbaugh, which he certainly didn’t intend to be, has become the face of the satellite camp movement, and proponents may as well put him on the $100 bill. As it relates to this topic, he will be the guy who was smart enough to play within the rules and make it benefit handsomely for himself while damaging his rivals, only to be told retroactively that it shouldn’t have been done, all the while thumbing down the people that need it most.
He’s walking into a posh living room with his “what the hell” personality and making everyone that matters love him by the time he has to leave.
No one around Harbaugh’s camp would ever say it, but this is the only good thing that will end up coming from this ruling. Harbaugh is the Robin Hood of recruiting now, and others will see the error of their greedy ways manifest itself every off season until he departs.
