John Harbaugh connects faith, work and family

WOODLAWN – Some of the best advice John Harbaugh ever received came on the day Steve Bisciotti hired him as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens five years ago.

“(Bisciotti) said, ‘Treat each day of work like it’s the first day on the job, and treat every day with your family like it’s your last,” remembered Harbaugh, addressing a March 4 gathering of supporters of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

The leader of the Super Bowl-champion Ravens said it’s possible to be “100 percent” committed to work and family, but it’s not possible to be 100 percent committed to work, family and “all kinds of other stuff.”

“You’ve got to decide what’s important,” he said, adding that anyone looking for success in life should look at building supportive relationships.

“It’s all about building up people around you,” said Harbaugh, speaking at Martin’s West in Woodlawn. “You want to be successful in life? Find someone to help. You want to be successful in life? Find a way to make somebody else better.”

Harbaugh has long had strong ties to the 59-year-old Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the largest Christian sports organization in the United States. As a teen, Harbaugh attended a camp sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He participated with Greg Yarrington, a football teammate at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Mich., who later recounted how the camp changed his life.

“It changed my life too because that’s when I became a Christian – and God goes to work on us from then on out,” Harbaugh told a group of 125 middle school and high school students prior to his keynote address to the Fellowship of Student Atheletes.

Harbaugh, a lifelong Catholic and former altar boy, admitted that as a teen he only went to church “every now and then.” Today, he regularly attends Mass both at the liturgies offered by Ravens Chaplain Father Christopher Whatley and at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Homeland.

Peppering his speech with biblical references, Harbaugh noted that the Ravens’ Super Bowl run was a “journey of faith.” Approximately half the team was composed of born-again Christians, he said, and there was a strong sense of spirituality among the players – especially from leaders such as Ray Lewis. In addition to Harbaugh, other Catholic team members included Matt Birk and Justin Tucker.

“God’s got a relationship with every single one of us that’s different because it’s unique – it’s individual,” Harbaugh said. “It’s one-on-one. The players are the same way.”

The coach, who said he has never heard a better explanation for the meaning of life than what is offered by Christianity, asserted that God is a “big God.”

“He’s big enough to be in that locker room, man,” Harbaugh said. “Our guys – they felt it.”

Harbaugh recounted challenges along the road to the championship – foremost among them being the loss to the New England Patriots in last year’s AFC Championship game. Had the Ravens won, they would have gone to the Super Bowl. A year after that loss, the team returned to Foxborough for a rematch that resulted in a Baltimore win and a Super Bowl berth.

“The days are long, but the years are shorter,” Harbaugh said.

To a cheering crowd, the coach noted that Baltimore will always have its 2013 Super Bowl championship.

“We will rejoice in that,” he said. “We will take pride in that. We will give glory and honor where it belongs, those of us who understand that – forever. No one can take that away.”