What Happened The First Time Alex Smith Met Jim Harbaugh? | 9/10/24

do you have a hard boss story we got him coming up top of next hour is there one oh do you yeah oh I got yeah I got plenty I got har boss stories for days Dan how about one I haven't heard that would I can I can bring back to Jim to Jim all right um yeah I mean I got a few mean first off like I'll never forget when I first met him um you know like I was we were in the building I it was actually right before the lockout was going on I was getting ready to have my first child so I'm kind of sneaking in I'm getting ready to be a free agent Dan there's no way that the Niners are going to keep me and I'm not sure I really want to be back with them either you know and so but I meanwhile they still let me in the building to work out so I'm coming in the building I'm kind of sneaking in the ground floor and working out and getting out of there and Jim comes down one day and he see I've been doing this for a couple weeks and he I think he maybe caught wind and he catches me down there and he like he immediately comes up and introduces himself but he starts he's sizing me up immediately like just I I mean like literally not even being very discreet about it literally sizing me up I can tell he's like looking at my body how tall I am oh you're bigger than I thought like kind of taller than I thought and then he's like hey put your hand up I'm like what what so I put my hand up and he puts his hand up next to mine so we're hand to hand right and he's measuring my hand I mean I haven't met him this it hasn't been two minutes and so he's looking at my hand he's like ahuh all right like this it's I mean this full inspection he's like hey you want to go play catch and I was sure sure let's go so he goes in and he tap you know he's got this gnarly looking pinky on his throwing hand so he tapes up his pinky and just Jim and I go out on the practice field at the at the Niners and we play catch and we start you know he start just normal throwing right so like we're 10 yards away and tossing the ball to each other and after a few Danny starts like I can tell he's like humming him at me right like so it's like okay and he's kind of like come on bring it on and so I I start humming him back at him right here we are again like I swear it hasn't been 10 minutes since I met the guy and we're playing like pepper 10 yards apart out on the practice field just humming balls at each other as hard as we can kind of who can catch them who can throw it harder then he's like okay then we go walk over and we start throwing we playing these games these throwing games at goalpost and he's like moving me around and he was obviously a lot younger I mean this was a long time ago he's you know he can still throw it and so we're playing all these throwing games at at goalpost and trying to do all these contests hey do this now see if you can do this this lasts about 20 minutes 25 minutes he's like all right okay you know we walk in that's enough doesn't say anything I get no feedback at all on like how this went I mean I remember coming home to my wife and I'm like telling her about what happened and she's like what did you think I'm like I got I have no idea no idea well luckily a couple days later you know I go back in work out you know Jim pops back down again says hey you want to go play catch again so this repeated he and I go play catch for several weeks just Jim and I playing catch and playing stupid games and pepper out on the field you know and all of a sudden this kind of led to like hey what do you think about coming back and uh that's just the way Jim is and he's one of a kind and he's all ball all ball I I say this on the podcast like Jim he would tell the team this he's like damn his life aspirations were to play football as long as he could and then coach football as long as he could and then you know that's Jim that's Jim and it's real you know so but you know what I was wondering about this I don't know if you'll get the analogy he's like Ted lasso like he just has kind of corny sayings he's his own per he's unique you know positivity all of those things it just feels like if there's a Ted lasso in the NFL it's Jim Harbaugh no there is there is and I think that's it's kind of one things I think people ask about leadership all the time you know what makes a leader and certainly NFL world where it's a bunch of just alpha dogs right like the bigest bad biggest baddest dudes on the planet but at the core of being a leader like you got to be authentic right you can't you can't BS anybody and Jim it's authentic like he just loves football he genuinely like he is doing what he's meant to do um and as Quirky as it is like I think I know I always just appreciated the honesty in it like he just this is who he is it's different yeah but like again he loves what he's doing he's grateful for it and I think that it really sets a atone for the building and the team