Chargers News: How Jim Harbaugh, Even As A Player, Used Unorthodox Methods, Other Sports To Inspire Quarterbacks

He had a tactical temerity even then.

Your Los Angeles Chargers may have lucked into a coaching lifer, one who's been preparing for this opportunity even since he was playing.

According Daniel Popper of The Athletic, then-quarterback Jim Harbaugh made a point to inspire his then-San Diego Chargers comrades at the position using any means at his disposal. Even if those means were obtained via other sports.

When the Bolts were given an off-day in-season during a miserable 1-15 run in 2000 (on Tuesdays), Harbaugh took fellow San Diego quarterbacks Ryan Leaf and Moses Moreno for a round of golf, with the play callers alternating course selections between the three of them. A Coronado course pick from Harbaugh helped inform a militaristic ethos one week, Popper notes by way of example.

“He always found a really interesting way to corroborate the golf course with kind of a message,” Leaf revealed. “Everything he did had a coach feeling to it... There was always a bigger message that was being sent in everything he did, from the clothes he’s wearing to the golf course he picked for us to play at so he could share stories along the way.”

LA finished 5-12 last year under head coach Brandon Staley and his interim replacement Giff Smith. Meanwhile, in the NCAA game, Harbaugh won the College Football Playoff title with the Michigan Wolverines.