By Dick Mittman
indy500.com
Friday, January 10, 2003
Jim Harbaugh is the only man on Earth who has a chance to be part of a winning team at the Super Bowl and of a winning team at the Indianapolis 500, often called the Super Bowl of auto racing.
"Those would be two good rings," said Harbaugh, who came within one dropped pass of taking the Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl as a quarterback in 1996.
Harbaugh is in such an enviable position because he is offensive assistant coach of the strong Oakland Raiders team in the NFL as well as sharing ownership of the Pennzoil Panther Racing team that has won the last two IRL IndyCar Series championships with Sam Hornish Jr. driving.
"I'm with two great organizations," Harbaugh said.
Harbaugh is around NFL MVP Rich Gannon -- Harbaugh helps coach the Raiders' quarterbacks - and Hall of Fame-bound receiver Jerry Rice every day during the football season. He calls Rice "the Babe Ruth of football," but when it comes to picking his favorite athlete in all of sports, it's Hornish.
"Sam's going to do it," Harbaugh said about winning the Indianapolis 500.
"He's my sports hero. Whether he's being chased or is doing the chasing, he's going to the front."
Harbaugh has the rare opportunity to compare the athletic talents of two superstars in dissimilar venues. He sees Gannon and Hornish as very similar.
"The thing that jumps out at you," he said, "is that they are cold-blooded. Whether it's in the cockpit or in the pocket, they have nerves of steel. Neither is afraid to have the ball in his hands at the end. Rich is at his best in the fourth quarter and Sam in the last couple laps."
Harbaugh, a native of Toledo, Ohio, who took Michigan to the Rose Bowl in his senior season, played 15 seasons in the NFL with the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, San Diego Chargers, Baltimore Ravens and Carolina Panthers. He completed 2,305 of 3,918 passes for 26,288 yards and 129 touchdowns.
He led the Colts to the AFC championship game at Pittsburgh in 1996. The Colts trailed, 20-16, as they lined up on the Steelers' 29-yard line for the last play of the game. Harbaugh passed into the end zone, and receiver Aaron Bailey leaped high and appeared to come down with the ball for a spectacular victory. But Bailey couldn't hang onto the ball as he fell to the turf, and it bounced off his chest to the ground.
"I was talking about that today with a couple of coaches," Harbaugh said. "What I remember is we were going to the Super Bowl. I could taste it in my mouth. We were going. Though we lost, it was a great game."
Led by Gannon and Rice, the Raiders finished 11-5 in 2002 and earned the first-round bye as AFC West champion. The team was directed from the sidelines by first-year head coach Bill Callahan. The Raiders beat the New York Jets and the Tennessee Titans in the AFC playoffs to earn a trip to the Super Bowl on Jan. 26 to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
"It's really great to be a small part of this," Harbaugh said. "It would mean a lot (to reach the Super Bowl). That's why we play. That's why we do all the little things. It's a great accomplishment for a first-year coach. But we're not there yet."
Harbaugh's game job on the sidelines is to chart the plays and come up with some small detail that might help on the next one. It's quite a change from being in the middle of the action on the field.
"It's probably like being the stem or the roots instead of the flowers," he said.
Harbaugh became interested in racing while with the Colts. He met John Barnes, team manager and one of the co-owners of Pennzoil Panther Racing, and another co-owner Gary Pedigo, and they became friends. Harbaugh bought a car at Pedigo's Indianapolis dealership located just north of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Panther Racing was formed, and the Pennzoil sponsorship came onboard. Veteran Scott Goodyear was the first driver, and when he retired at the end of the 2000 season, a tryout took place to pick a replacement. All were impressed with Hornish, only 21 at the time. He has proven to be a brilliant performer at 220 mph.
Harbaugh still gets goose bumps when he recalls last October's IRL IndyCar Series season finale at Texas where Hornish edged two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves by .0096 of a second to clinch his second straight title. The Raiders were in Pittsburgh for a Sunday night game, and Harbaugh watched the afternoon race on television.
"It was the most dramatic, exciting thing I've ever seen," he said. "It was 20 minutes of side-by-side racing. Twenty minutes! I asked Sam how he felt, and he said he was so busy concentrating he didn't notice anything. He has ice water in his veins."
But the Indy 500 checkered flag still awaits Hornish's arrival.
Hornish has made three Indianapolis 500 starts. In his rookie race of 2000, he crashed on Lap 153 and finished 24th. He was flagged after 196 laps in the 2001 race and placed 14th. Last May, he started seventh, but completed only 186 laps and finished 25th due to lengthy repair time in the pits.
"That's been disappointing to us," Harbaugh said. "When we put the team together winning the 500, winning the championship, those were our goals. We want to win the 500.
"It's a hard race to win. Nothing is taken for granted. They say you need a little luck. We need some luck."
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