Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen walked into an Ann Arbor steakhouse four years ago for a party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Michigan’s last national championship in football. Brady, of course, had done quite well for himself since 1997: He won the quarterback job after Brian Griese graduated; he went to the NFL and won the starting job with the Patriots; he won three Super Bowls; and he won the hand of one of the most beautiful women in the world. But on this night, he and his wife sat across from a tall man who knew Brady when none of that was certain. Brady started to introduce his wife to the man as they sat down, but she cut him off.
“Oh,” she said, “I know who this is.”
He is not a coach. Never has been. And although his campus office is decked out in Michigan maize and blue, and he was hired as an assistant A.D. by legendary coach Bo Schembechler, this man once hated Michigan so much that he left the school – twice.
But once he returned, he had a powerful effect on the lives of a Super Bowl MVP, a Heisman Trophy winner, and one of the greatest Olympians of all time. He’s not somebody you’ve read a lot about, and some people who have followed Michigan all their lives haven’t even heard of him, but Greg Harden is one of the most important motivational figures in sports.
“Greg Harden has and will always be one of the most influential people in my life,” Brady says.
Desmond Howard goes one step further: “I don’t know if I win the Heisman,” he says, “if Greg isn’t at Michigan.”
Without Greg, We Wouldn’t Have Won The National Championship
We turn on our TVs every Saturday and envy the young men on the field. They have their health, their girlfriends, their teams and their shot at national glory just a play away. But many of them are confused, lost, scared. They are confident but also estranged; they can’t just show up to the field and play anymore. They have to study, win over coaches, line up against teammates and opponents more talented than they are. So the frat house partying glorified in movies often masks serious problems. Seventy-five percent of anxiety disorders appear before age 22. And suicide is the second leading cause of death in men aged 15 to 24. It might be surprising to learn that Tom Brady, Desmond Howard and even Michael Phelps had crises of doubt during their late teens and early 20s. The best athletes aren’t supposed to have problems. They are supposed to be brave, impervious, super human. But even those who are on the brink of greatness are sometimes just as close to the brink of breakdown. “A guy like Greg Harden is essential,” says Howard. “A lot of things go through your mind as a young collegiate athlete.”
The next time you watch a Michigan football game, you’ll see the head coach dozens of times. But there will also be a tall man in street clothes on the sideline that you won’t see. That will be Harden – not a coach, not
even a psychologist, but maybe more important than either. Harden’s official title is associate athletic director, but he’s a mentor, a life coach, and a last line of defense. “Greg doesn’t get enough accolades,” says former Wolverine receiver Walter Smith. “He held the same value as the head coach. Without Greg, they wouldn’t have won the national championship in ’97. Or any of the other championships.”
If He Wasn’t Depressed, He Was Close
That year, 1997, was a crucial year for Michigan football. But it was also a crucial year for the skinny kid who backed up quarterback Brian Griese that season. He showed up at Harden’s office after two years as a benchwarmer and said, “I think you can help me.”
Harden told Tom Brady to take a seat.
We all know Brady as the leader who seems to know exactly what to do at all times. Well, this Tom Brady wasn’t like that. He was a bit lost. He just had acute appendicitis, he had lost 25 pounds, he was no lock to ever start at Michigan, and the head coach had his eye on a stud prep from down the road named Drew
Henson. The thought entered his mind to pack up and transfer to Cal. “He was feeling like a
victim,” says Harden. “And he hated it. If he wasn’t depressed, he was close.”
Desmond Howard was in pretty much the same place. We all remember him as the silky-smooth Heisman returner/receiver. But Howard was a tailback in high school who was asked by Michigan coaches to play out of position. When he got to campus, he was just another skill player at the “athlete” spot who would never live up to the legend of Anthony Carter. Even when he hit the field, he never knew when he would touch the ball. Howard thought about leaving too. “There were struggles,” Howard says, “There was a lot of blocking. I didn’t feel like that was what they brought me to Michigan to do. I was not sure I’d be a student-athlete at the U of M at the following season.”
Harden told Howard pretty much the same thing he told Brady: “Who gives a f— if you leave? You ain’t done s— anyway. You want to leave? Go ‘head.”
I Didn’t Ask For Help, And They Assumed I Wasn’t Interested
Harden was born only an hour from Ann Arbor, but it felt to him like the other side of the planet. His dad was a Chrysler repairman for 30 years – as dedicated a man as you’ll ever find, but the job wore on him. “Pops worked 70 hours a week,” Harden says. “When you saw him, he was either tired or pissed off.”
Greg saw that tough exterior all throughout his childhood, and he grew one himself. And that was not a bad strategy in Southwest Detroit. “Either be angry,” he says, “or get your ass kicked everyday. You don’t know you’re set up to be self-hating, too.”
He would find out soon enough.
Harden was all-city and all-state in track at Detroit Southwestern. He was so good that as a senior, he pulled a hamstring and finished eighth in the state without being able to jump in the finals. Harden went to Michigan and put up the same angry front. When coaches told him to hit the weight room, he was too proud to say he never lifted a weight in his life. “I didn’t ask for help,” he says now, “and they assumed I wasn’t interested.”
Coaches told him to take P.E., and Harden bristled. He blamed everyone but himself. “My relationship with athletics went straight downhill,” he says. “I thought they were racist. They didn’t like me, I didn’t like them. I didn’t know I had a bad attitude.”
Harden dropped out, got his girlfriend pregnant and moved back to Detroit. So that’s why Harden tells the story to all the freshman athletes about the kid who was faster and stronger in high school and wound up on the front porch doing nothing.
That kid is Harden himself.
He got married and that turned into “a complete disaster,” he says. He found work in a steel mill and hated it. So he tried Michigan again. But he wasn’t any less angry. This time he cared more about being an activist than a student. He wasn’t much of either. He dropped out a second time. “My opinion of Michigan,” he says, “was that I wasn’t intelligent enough to be there.”
