Jim Harbaugh camp out at Bowie State
Michigan coach works at football exposure event with Bulldogs
BOWIE — Dozens of high school athletes attended a football exposure camp hosted Saturday by Bowie State, where the main attraction was a visit by Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and some of his staff.
Players got the opportunity to meet Harbaugh and work out at one of his program’s “satellite camps,” in hopes that they might earn a football scholarship offer from the Division I powerhouse in the future.
“It was really great effort and talent. Just a pleasure to be out here and watch guys compete,” Harbaugh said. “When you watch guys pour their heart and soul into something, it’s fun to be around.”
Satellite camps allow college programs to work out high school recruits anywhere in the country during the offseason. Teams are limited to 10 days of camps per year, and they must be held on college campuses, according to a new NCAA rule put in place this year.
“We’re like miners for gold. We’re out there looking for gold nuggets, trying to find good, better, best,” Harbaugh said.
Michigan’s new passing game coordinator, Pep Hamilton, was another popular figure visiting Bowie State. A former NFL coordinator who also coached at Howard University in Washington, Hamilton said he has been friends with Bowie State coach Damon Wilson since they met at a camp almost 20 years ago.
“I was able to give an informed opinion [to staff ] of how I thought we would be received in this area,” Hamilton said of his influence on Michigan’s decision to come to Bowie.
Bowie State held a satellite camp last summer at Archbishop Spalding that attracted coaches from Penn State and Syracuse, but this is the first year it has hosted one on its campus. Wilson said athletes came from Philadelphia, New Jersey and all across Maryland.
“When you’re exposed to student-athletes, you want them to know that football is football at every level,” Wilson said. “Here in the state of Maryland, we know a number of college programs come through this area to recruit. So it’s good to rub elbows with Coach Harbaugh and his staff and talk a little football as we expose these young folks to their next opportunity.”
The coaches introduced themselves to the athletes shortly after 3 p.m., when Harbaugh told the group it was a “rule” for them to not get hurt at the camp — he even had them raise their right hands and pledge, “I will not get hurt today.” Then, Harbaugh kicked things off by holding foot races for each positional group, which he said helps highlight high-effort players.
“I’ve always been a fan of a race, whether it’s running, swimming — jump in the pool and see who swims to the other side the fastest,” Harbaugh said later. “It’s the best determiner. Just race ’em.”
Northeast High’s Davon Carroll won in the wide receivers and defensive backs group, and Spalding rising senior Chris Ford was deemed the fastest lineman in both straight-ahead and change-of-direction races. Harbaugh congratulated the top three finishers in each race at midfield and announced their names into his megaphone.
“It’s a humble feeling because I’d never seen Coach Harbaugh; I’d only seen him on TV,” Ford said. “And it’s like, ‘Wow, he acknowledged who I am, and now everyone [here] knows who I am.’ ”
Ford, a defensive end and linebacker, doesn’t have any collegiate scholarship offers yet, but as a self-professed Wolverines fan, a scholarship from them would mean something special.
“It would mean everything because I’ve watched them ever since I was a kid, so if something like that happened, I’d be extremely excited,” Ford said.
The players then rotated through a series of drills. Harbaugh often held court at midfield, watching whatever caught his eye, setting off a siren sound into his megaphone to signal it was time to change drills.
At the camp’s conclusion, Wilson and Hamilton encouraged the players to keep their grades up and perform well on the SATs. Hamilton likened football to the young men’s vehicle, but then said “academics is the gas that fuels that vehicle.”
Hamilton later spoke to reporters about the “abundance of talent” in the D.C.Maryland-Virginia region and his connection to the area.
“I have a ton of relationships with the coaches that I’ve known here in this area over the years, and we feel like we give [players] a great opportunity to play championship football and get a championship education as well,” Hamilton said.
Harbaugh stayed long after the camp broke to chat with players and their families and take pictures.
Harbaugh kicked off his 2017 camp tour Friday morning at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., before flying to a Cleveland suburb to attend a camp at John Carroll University in the evening. Harbaugh said he flew into Maryland on Saturday morning, and was on his way to visit his brother, Ravens coach John Harbaugh, and John’s family after the camp. His next stop will be a return to Georgia for a Sunday camp at Valdosta State.