KNBR and Head Coach Jim Harbaugh discussing philosophies of coaching, thoughts on the draft, family and competition. Thought some of you might have missed the podcast and would enjoy a few short excerpts from their conversation.

Please excuse any spelling or punctuation errors. I did this late at night on a whim because I loved the audio clip and wanted to share a little with my fellow diehard Faithful. NOTE: It's not exactly word for word, I edited out some stutters, ums, you knows, etc to make the reading easier.

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Harbaugh (Discussing the construction around OTAs) " You're trying to build your team, while your building your team everybody's trying to fight you, trying to beat you, everyone's looking for your weaknesses, you're building and fighting at the same time... Fortifying our positions, its almost biblical to me"

KNBR "...If I saw you with a shovel and sword, I'm thinking you'd be fighting with both of them"

Harbaugh "...If you could only have one..... Say you could only have one, make it a shield instead of a sword (he meant shovel), if you could only have a shield or a sword"

KNBR "I'll take the shield"

Harbaugh "You'll take the shield?? So would I, so would I, so would I"

KNBR "Cuz I can turn the shield more-so into weapon then I can turn the sword into a defense mechanism"

Harbaugh- "That's exactly how I think as well, I bet if you asked five people, that four of them would tell ya they'll take the sword, I think you're dead on, right on that, you take the shield, BUILD YOUR DEFENSE, then you can use your defense as a weapon as well"

KNBR "Tell us a little bit about the draft, specifically those two first picks, AJ Jenkins, LaMichael James. Was that something you thought going into the draft that you, Trent Baalke and the scouts thought, this is something we need, we need more guys on this team that can get big chunks of yardage. I don't wanna say that's the reason you didn't get to the Superbowl, but certainly you didn't have the big explosive plays in the Giants game you did in the Saints game. Was that something going in that you said, this is something we need to address or were they just the two best players that fell to you at that point?"

Harbaugh "Well the first thing to say is that, we have a team, that we feel, is a big, strong, fast team, how were built right now. Whatever position group that we drafted into, there was no glaring need, that we felt we had to, had to address, but its also true that AJ and LaMichael James were two players that we highly coveted. We felt like we had a chance to get AJ at the end of the first but no later. We felt like LaMichael James would go in the mid 2nd round and we were ecstatic when he was sitting there with our second pick, he was on the board. Both those guys are not just fast, they're impeccable on the field and they're great guys off"

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Harbaugh (Discussing coaches he's learned from) "Had great coaches, I was so blessed and fortunate to play for living legends, Bo Schembechler, Mike Ditka, Lindy Infante, Ted Marchibroda, you know I was raised by my dad, there's the best coach right there. So many things that you're not trying to copy, it just becomes a part of your DNA. I think the thing that is most important for a coach is that its about the game, its doing things that you know what you're doing, that you put players in a position to be successful, you can think your way through to success, those are things that i always respected and valued in coaches and many more things. People that loved it, loved it, loved the game, allowed players and allowed themselves to show enthusiasm for the game, had joy for the game and had a deep abiding respect for the game"

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Harbaugh (His feeling on coaching) "I love the little things, I love all the little things, I never think that its one thing that ever really makes a difference, I really believe its a thousand little things that most people don't think mean much, the minutia of details but those little things all add up to make all the difference"

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Harbaugh (Discussing disciplining or getting on a player for something) "For me personally, when I played, and I believe this as a coach and a teacher... you can just teach them, show them what to do, tell them what to do, then let them do. Tell them what they did wrong, what they did RIGHT. That's coaching, that's teaching and you know, if you do get on a guy, the big thing is to get with them, let them know that you believe in them, explain why you were telling them what you were telling them. I think as long as people know that you believe in them, then they're going to believe in themselves. Its when they sense that you don't believe in them, or don't care about them, as a player or a person, then they start to not believe in themselves and then they've got no chance. If they've already hit a wall, and then you don't believe in them, they don't believe in themselves and then they have a chance to spiral way down."

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KNBR "Being that I have a brother myself, we will get into wrestling matches, for no other reason then that we are brothers and that's kinda what brothers do. Whens the last time you had a wrestling match with your brother?"

Harbaugh "I would have to say, nineteen hundred and eighty nine (he literally says, nineteen hundred and eighty nine, he sounds like a wise sage) would be my best guess. Twenty three years ago, yeah, I was probably 22 or 23 and he was 25. We were on a family trip in Jacksonville, Florida, we were out in the water, you know wading in the water, body surfing or whatever and the next thing I know we were wrestling around in the ocean."

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Harbaugh (Discussing a family basketball game) "There was a basketball game, with my brother-in-law Tom Crean, my dad, and my son Jay, who at the time was 13. We were in a 2v2 basketball game in Milwaukee, when Tom was coaching at Marquette, that one got pretty heated. Tom and I didn't talk to each other for the rest of the trip which was about three days"

KNBR "Who won?"

Harbaugh "Me and my son Jay"

KNBR "Of course you did!"

Harbaugh "HA HA HA HA HA! Beat him on his own court! I think that's the last thing that I told Tom and i think that kinda put the nail in the coffin on us talking the last three days of your trip. I beat you on your own court!"

KNBR "I'm gonna guess you haven't given him a rematch since"

Harbaugh "We have not played since"

KNBR "There you go, there you go, walk off the court a champ"

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I think Harbaugh is an incredibly interesting person and head coach. I bolded certain sections of his conversation that jumped out to me. Harbaughisms, his take on defense and a hilarious basketball story that shows Jim Harbaugh's fiery competitive side. I think it's hilarious that he got his brother-in-law so furious after a game that they didn't talk during a three day family trip. Does this make anyone think of Jim Schwartz and Pete Carrol anyone?

There you go Ninersnation, hope you liked something you've read. Feel free to rec as this was my first full fledged FanPost. ty ty