YouTube/Getty Ingrid Harbaugh, John Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson
The last time Baltimore’s head coach John Harbaugh brought the Ravens to the Super Bowl was in 2013, when he beat out the San Francisco 49ers, whose head coach at the time was his younger brother, Jim Harbaugh. The Ravens won 34- 31, and on the field celebrating afterward was wife Ingrid Harbaugh, and their daughter Alison, who was only 11 years old at the time.
While the Ravens enter Saturday night’s playoff match-up against the Tennessee Titans as 9.5 point favorites to win, Ingrid once again has the tough job of being a closely involved spectator. In 2012, Ingrid said of the long NFL season, “The first word would be ‘stressful.’ It’s very stressful, for like all six months of the season.”
However, over the past decade, Ingrid has become a knowledgeable sports fan, and naturally, a die-hard Ravens supporter. She once joked, “If you want to spend four hours with your husband on Sunday, you may want to watch a game with them and start to understand it.”
While Ingrid has wonderful memories of the Ravens winning the Super Bowl championship game with quarterback Joe Flacco, she is a huge fan of quarterback Lamar Jackson, and the partnership her husband shares with the rookie who Baltimore drafted with the final pick of the first round in 2018.
“John was close to Joe too,” Ingrid, said to ESPN in November. “But it’s just a different level with Lamar.”
It’s absolutely true that Harbaugh and Jackson are close. The coach has a deep respect and admiration of his team’s quarterback, who is primed to be this year’s Super Bowl MVP if the Ravens advance and win. If you listen to the sidelines conversation between Harbaugh and Jackson in the video below, it shows fans everything they need to know about their relationship.
“You changed the game, man.”
Coach Harbaugh’s sideline convo with @Lj_era8 at Cincinnati:
“You changed the game, man,” Harbaugh tells Jackson. “You know how many little kids in this country are going to be wearing No. 8 playing quarterback for the next 20 years because of you?”
“I can’t wait to see it,” Jackson responded. “When I get older. But right now I’ve got to get to the Super Bowl.”
Harbaugh & Wife Ingrid Will Celebrate Their 30th Anniversary In July
John Harbaugh with wife Ingrid and daughter Alison
Harbaugh married wife Ingrid on July 12, 1991. The couple first met at Western Michigan University in 1985, when Harbaugh was working as a graduate assistant for his father Jack, and Ingrid was a student assistant in the college’s baseball office. When the copier broke, Harbaugh walked across the campus to help Ingrid fix it, and the rest is history.
During a keynote speech at Stevenson University in 2015, Harbaugh said, “I have the greatest daughter and the greatest wife in the history of the world. I pray that blessing for you as well.”
Harbaugh’s daughter Alison has also caught the sports bug. While she started her college career at Bryn Mawr, a liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, she changed things up in 2018 after being recruited to play women’s lacrosse at Notre Dame.
While Alison comes from a Michigan family, her uncle Jim Harbaugh coaches the Wolverines, and her grandfather was once assistant coach there, her dad said during a press conference that he was excited with her final decision.
John Harbaugh in a Notre Dame women’s lacrosse sweater. Confirms that his daughter, Alison, has committed to the Irish. Doesn’t know the words to the fight song but can hum the tune.
“Great place, really amazing coaching staff there and great university and great people, and she’s gotten really close with all of the players and the recruits,” Harbaugh said, as reported by The Baltimore Sun. “That’s where she wanted to go from the beginning. She loved it there.”
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