SAN DIEGO — Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh’s homecoming was a very big deal.
“Incredible,” Harbaugh said upon his return Tuesday to the University of San Diego, where he began his head coaching career in 2004. “The little hairs on my arms were standing up, exactly the way I felt when Monsignor (Daniel) Dillabough brought me over to USD when I was playing with the Chargers.”
Once, after Harbaugh attended a basketball game at the Jenny Craig Pavilion, he asked Dillabough if he could take a tour of the football facilities and Torero Stadium, and he came away impressed as he gazed down upon the 6,000-seat on-campus stadium and its lush green field.
“Some day, when I get done playing, I’m going into coaching and it would be incredible for this to be the place where I coach,” Harbaugh recalled telling Dillabough, who now serves as a special assistant to the school’s president and is its senior priest and who was on hand Tuesday to greet Harbaugh.
In 2004, Harbaugh was an assistant coach with the then-Oakland Raiders when the head coaching position opened at USD. He interviewed and got the job, spending three seasons with the Toreros before moving to Stanford University, then the San Francisco 49ers, then the University of Michigan and then the Chargers.
Leaving the Raiders to coach in college required a leap of faith.
“(Go to) USC not USD,” a laughing Harbaugh recalled Al Davis saying when he informed the late Raiders owner of his plans to leave the NFL fast track in favor of a coaching job at a school with fewer than 6,000 undergraduate students in a city that was then dominated by its beloved Chargers.
In the end, it all worked out for Harbaugh, who has been a success at every stop, including during his first season with the now-Los Angeles Chargers. He led them to an 11-6 record and a wild-card playoff berth in 2024 after guiding Michigan to a 15-0 record and a national championship in ’23.
Harbaugh brought the Chargers back to San Diego for the first of two days of practice, and they worked out for 90 minutes in front of a select crowd of active military personnel and veterans and their families. A small cluster of curious fans also watched from a hill overlooking Torero Stadium.
Last season, the Chargers held a practice for the Marines at Camp Pendleton and it went so well, a return visit to San Diego County was in order. Harbaugh said there was nowhere he would have rather been than at USD with the Chargers on a sunny but mild Tuesday afternoon.
“Right now, all the focus is on practice, but I’m definitely going to spend some time afterwards,” Harbaugh said of touring the campus after practice ended, especially the grueling workout hill that he and other Toreros coaches have used over the years to test their athletes’ fitness.
In fact, Harbaugh recalled “like it was yesterday” the day he challenged wide receiver Nick Garton, who always seemed to finish ahead of the pack. It didn’t turn out so well for Harbaugh, though. Garton won the race up and down the steep hill, leaving Harbaugh and the others in his wake.
“By golly, can’t anyone beat Nick Garton?” Harbaugh said he asked the Toreros. “There’s not even a close second here. If you guys can’t do it, I’ll do it. I’ll show you how to do it. So, I ran that hill, got to the top and as I was coming around the other side, I was in second place to Nick Garton.”
That’s when things went haywire.
Harbaugh said he vomited in midstride, but still managed to finish second to the apparently unbeatable Garton, a former standout at Dana Hills High in Orange County.
“All you can do is tip the hat to Nick Garton,” Harbaugh said, laughing.
EXTRA POINTS
The Chargers practiced in pads for the first time in training camp, but Harbaugh discouraged physical play, saying the pads were merely for protection. … Rookie defensive back Trikweze Bridges made a leaping interception of a Justin Herbert pass in the end zone and was promptly mobbed by his celebrating defensive teammates, especially safety Derwin James Jr. … It was Bradley Bozeman’s turn at center. Bozeman and left guard Zion Johnson have been alternating at the position through the first five days of camp.