Less than an hour after their 2014 season ended, the San Francisco 49ers and head coach Jim Harbaugh agreed to mutually part ways.
If you ask Harbaugh, though, that’s not exactly how things went down.
In a Friday interview on the San Jose Mercury News’ podcast, “The TK Show,” Harbaugh told host Tim Kawakami that the 49ers didn’t give him much choice regarding his future with the team.
“I was told I wouldn’t be the coach anymore,” Harbaugh said, via the Mercury News. “And then … You can call it ‘mutual,’ I mean, I wasn’t going to put the 49ers in the position to have a coach that they didn’t want anymore.
“But that’s the truth of it. I didn’t leave the 49ers. I felt like the 49er hierarchy left me.”
The head of that hierarchy is team CEO Jed York. In a statement issued after Harbaugh’s departure, York said it was in him and Harbaugh’s “mutual best interest to move in different directions.”
According to Harbaugh, though, the team informed him that he wouldn’t be coming back after a Dec. 14 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, which officially eliminated San Francisco from playoff contention. Harbaugh said Friday he could have left at that point, but wanted to coach the final two games of the season to “finish what (the team) started.”
Of course, the 51-year-old wasn’t unemployed long, officially signing with Michigan to coach his alma mater on Dec. 30, two days after leaving San Francisco. After a rocky departure from the Bay Area, Harbaugh said it was smooth sailing to Ann Arbor.
“I really didn’t look at any other situation,” Harbaugh said. “I didn’t do a pros and cons list or anything. It was just a decision I made from the heart and that was it. I was going to go to Michigan.”
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports Images
