Jim Harbaugh is the new coach of the Los Angeles Chargers and to understand what that means and why it happened, you have to understand where the organization has been.
Owner Dean Spanos announced the move from San Diego to Los Angeles in an open letter to fans on January 11, 2017. Over the next seven years and 14 days, the Chargers faced an uphill battle to find their place on one of the teams most competitive sports markets in the world. A battle of their own making, but a battle nonetheless.
They knew it would take time: cultivating this new land organization, planting the seeds, tending and nurturing those seedlings until they would one day blossom into a mature fan base. So the Chargers got their pieces, some deserved and some not. Through a 27,000-seat football stadium invaded every Sunday by opposing fans. Through a paradigm shift in franchise quarterbacking from Philip Rivers to Justin Herbert. Through a temporary training facility, two coaches and a uniform redesign.
What was missing is the most important thing: winning in January and February. They have the exciting star quarterback. They have attractive branding, from the powder blue jerseys to the cutting-edge content. In sports, however, that means nothing without trophies, banners and parades. Especially in this city. In the end, the company is a winner.
Every time the Chargers have had a chance over the past seven years and 14 days, they have failed.
The dramatic loss to the New England Patriots in the 2018 divisional round.
The Week 18 overtime loss in Las Vegas in 2021 that squandered one of the greatest comebacks in recent league history.
Jacksonville.
For the Chargers, the hump separating them from Los Angeles relevance has become a mountain. They brought it upon themselves, but they failed to deliver the most vital ingredient: sustainable victory.
And so, when the team parted ways with coach Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco in December after a disastrous loss to the Raiders, the pursuit of winning, and only winning, became the driving motivation.
Players and coaches are often asked about the sense of urgency when a season is going swimmingly.
Over the past month, it has been the Spanos family who have grappled with the urgency of this moment.

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The shelf life of a claim in Los Angeles is limited and the benefit is in sight.
The Chargers had no choice but to push beyond their own boundaries, their own approaches, their own identity to find that missing ingredient. Find the person who could deliver them the win they so desperately need. To do this, they had to shop at the pinnacle of the sport. No up-and-comers or rising stars. No, they needed proof of concept. A winner through and through, with the skins on the wall to prove it.
Enter Jim Harbaugh.
He agreed to terms with the Chargers on Wednesday, the team announced. This is a five-year agreement, according to AtleticoIt’s Jeff Howe.
“Jim Harbaugh is football personified,” Dean Spanos said in a statement.
the boy we wanted, the boy we got. pic.twitter.com/BIRjDWbUBy
—Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) January 25, 2024
The results speak for themselves.
In 2007, Harbaugh took over a Stanford program that had finished 1-11 the previous season. In 2009, the Cardinal finished 8-5. The following season, the team went 12-1, including a win in the Orange Bowl.
In 2011, Harbaugh moved to the NFL and took over the San Francisco 49ers team that had finished with a 6-10 record the previous season. That first year, they went 13-3 and made it to the NFC Championship Game. The following season, in 2012, they reached the Super Bowl. They won 12 games and cruised to their third straight conference championship in 2013. They went 8-8 in 2014 before Harbaugh left for Michigan. Harbaugh finished with a record of 44-19-1. He has never had a losing record as an NFL head coach.
When Harbaugh arrived in Ann Arbor in 2015 to lead his alma mater, the Wolverines had won more than eight games only once in the previous seven seasons, through two coaches. They won 10 games in 2015. They won 10 more games in 2016. They went 40-3 over the last three seasons, a streak that ended with a national championship in January. It was the university’s first national title since 1997.

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“You need a team,” president of football operations John Spanos said in a statement. “And no one has built a team more successfully, and repeatedly, in recent history than Jim Harbaugh.”
What Harbaugh’s hiring represents is the organization’s commitment, financially and ideologically, to winning.
“This organization is working hard: investing capital, building infrastructure and doing everything in its power to win,” Harbaugh said in a statement.
It doesn’t seem like a formal membership. Not this time.
The Chargers’ new training facility in El Segundo, California, will open in the spring. They signed Herbert to an extension at the top of the market. They entered a large, overqualified pool of head coaching candidates and came out with arguably the best of the bunch.
Will everything work?
This remains to be seen.
But commitment means something.
For where the Chargers have been and where they hope to go.
(Photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)