Most of John Harbaugh's fondest childhood memories revolve around football.
Playing in a pole vault sand pit next to the football field at an Ohio high school where his father, Jack, was putting the team through its summer practices. Being taped to the goal posts — along with his brother, Jim — by players at Michigan when their father was a member of legendary Wolverines coach Bo Schembechler's staff.
Todd Haley has similar recollections.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, where his father, Dick, was player personal director for the Steelers during their run of four Super Bowl championships in the 1970s, Haley often watched tape of college players his father was scouting, spent his summers in various roles at training camp in Latrobe and, when he was old enough, helped move the chains at Three Rivers Stadium.
It is only natural that the third-year Ravens coach and the second-year coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, whose teams will meet in a wild-card playoff game Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, followed their fathers. Harbaugh and Haley were simply going into the family business.
Because coaches tend to work 18-hour days and some even don't leave the office a few nights a week while honing strategy for the next game, their professional pursuits and personal lives meld — the lines blurred by their wives bringing the kids over for dinner or a game of two-hand touch on the team's practice fields.
"Because there are so many hours, if the coach allows the kids and the wives to come around to be a part of it, then it becomes part of your family experience," Harbaugh, 48, said Wednesday before practice in Owings Mills. "If not, maybe you tend to run away from it a little more because you might be a little bit resentful [of] not being included, not being around your dad. A lot of marriages break up, like any profession. I was always around, and was a part of it."
Harbaugh and Haley, in pursuit of this year's Super Bowl championship, are among a handful of NFL coaches who began as wide-eyed progenies, including Bill Belichick, the coach of the three-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, as well as New York Jets coach Rex Ryan and offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.
Ryan and his twin brother, Rob, followed their father, Buddy, an assistant coach on two Super Bowl champions, the 1968 Jets and 1985 Chicago Bears, and later head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals. Schottenheimer followed his father, Marty, who coached four NFL teams. Belichick spent much of his childhood in Annapolis, where his father, Steve, was a longtime assistant coach at Navy.
For Harbaugh and Haley, the memories are not just of an endless life of games and practices.
Harbaugh recalls the way his brother, who Friday left Stanford to become the San Francisco 49ers' coach, used to squirrel away the wristbands Michigan players gave them, write the jersey number of All-America quarterback Rick Leach on them, and sell them at school for a dollar apiece.
"Rick Leach must have had a thousand wristbands," John Harbaugh said, laughing at the memory.
Given the accomplishments of the Harbaugh brothers — John has taken the Ravens to their third straight playoff appearance and a 12-4 record this season; Jim brought Stanford to national prominence and a blowout win over Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl — John Harbaugh said it has been an exciting time for his family.
"I think it's a big deal for all of us," he said. "I'm proud of Jim for what he's done, and my dad and mom were down there, cousins were down there, I was the only one who wasn't down there. I'm kind of disappointed about that. They won a bowl game; now we've got to take steps to win a bowl game."
Asked whether he was surprised that he and his brother are doing the same thing as their father, Harbaugh said: "Probably if you know anything about coaching, you'd be surprised a little bit. But we're doing OK."
Jack Harbaugh, who went from Michigan to become head coach at Western Michigan and later was an assistant athletic director at Marquette, said he always figured his boys would follow him into the business. Even his daughter, Joanie, is married to Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean.
While the elder Harbaugh recalled Jim saying during his career as an All-America quarterback at Michigan that he wanted to coach after playing in the NFL, the future wasn't as clear for John.
After John Harbaugh finished his playing career at Miami of Ohio, there was a brief conversation at the dinner table one night during which Jackie Harbaugh suggested that her son think about a career in politics, starting with law school.
It didn't last long.
"He said he thought he wanted to give coaching a try, and that's when he came to work for me at Western Michigan," Jack Harbaugh recalled.
Watching his sons on the sideline, Jack Harbaugh believes their personalities are much the same as when they were younger — John is more pensive and analytical, while Jim tends to get overly emotional.
Dick Haley, who played with the Steelers and the Washington Redskins during a six-year career that ended in 1964, said he tells his wife, Carolyn, that their son's animated personality on the sideline "is more like her than like me." Todd Haley this season refused to shake hands with then- Denver Broncos coach Josh McDaniels after a game.
"He gets wired up pretty quick; I try to calm him down," Dick Haley said with a laugh. "I know he wasn't happy with that."
But Dick Haley was quick to add: "The No. 1 thing is that he likes what he's doing. There are so many pitfalls in this business, and it's getting worse because you're so scrutinized by everybody. Still, it's a lot of fun. He loves it."
Unlike John Harbaugh, Todd Haley stepped away from football for a few years.
After playing golf in college when a back injury ended his football career, Haley became a golf coach at Jacksonville University and later a club pro giving lessons for three seasons on Long Island. But eventually, he found his way back, taking a job in the Jets' scouting department, where his father had gone to work for Bill Parcells.
"I think there was a lot of doubt — I took a unique course," said Haley, who became a quality control assistant under Parcells, then worked his way up to offensive coordinator for the Cardinals when they faced the Steelers in the Super Bowl after the 2008 season. "Football's been my passion for my entire life, but never in a million years did I believe that I'd be a head coach in the National Football League."
Those summers at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, the longtime site of Steelers training camp, were particularly fun for Haley. How many kids get to bunk with their dad across the hall in the same dormitory with future Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann and Jack Lambert? Or roam the sidelines of Three Rivers Stadium on Sundays? Or get to four Super Bowls by age 17?
Said the elder Haley, who retired last year after finishing his career in the scouting department of the Miami Dolphins: "It was pretty special. I was in college before I got to see my first professional game. He got to see some of the greatest players of all time, watching them and being involved with them on a first-name basis. I think that's a great advantage for him as a coach. He knows as a coach what he's looking for. They were the standard."
Asked what gave him the urge to diverge from his father's career path and get into coaching, Todd Haley said: "It's a strong desire to be a little more involved on a direct level. I've always been kind of teacher coach, even when I was sidetracked in the golf aspect of it. It's always been in me. The evaluation aspect was a lot of fun, but I didn't quite understand how you could do a year's work of work on a player and then just turn him over to a coach. I know my father was a coach at heart. He used to coach me. If we were playing basketball in the driveway, he'd tell me to move without the ball."