Four… five… six… dropped. Five… six… seven… dropped. Six… seven… eight… dropped. A five-year-old girl’s face was covered in tears while playing catch with her dad.
“Let’s get ten in a row and then we can go inside,” her father said.
A large ask for such a little athlete. Getting stuck at nine proved frustrating for the budding star and her mother took notice. The little girl threw herself on the ground and her mother urged her father to let her go inside.
Quitting is not something associated with their family name.
After 30 minutes in the pitch-black Baltimore outdoors, the girl and her father caught ten balls in a row and went inside.
That little girl was a Harbaugh. Alison Harbaugh.
The Harbaugh name is synonymous with the sport of football. Legendary college football head coach Jack Harbaugh began the Harbaugh legacy in college football and his two sons Jim and John Harbaugh became stars in their own right. Now it is Alison Harbaugh’s turn to blaze a new trail for herself while still carrying the legacy of her family on her jersey nameplate.
Harbaugh is no stranger to the weight her last name holds. After a tough Ravens’ loss, she would wonder who would be the first one to say something to her at school. At the free throw line, she would hear chants of “Harbaugh sucks” from the opposing crowd.
From a young age she learned not to take stock of what people thought of her.
“Go in with your head held high,” her mother Ingrid said to her. “Be proud of your dad.”
A competitor from the beginning, she flipped a Chutes and Ladder board after losing as a child. She channeled this competition into her high school career, earning three high school varsity letters in basketball and one in tennis, according to her bio on the USF Lacrosse website.
Harbaugh was recruited to play women’s lacrosse for Notre Dame out of high school. She viewed it as the next best thing to an Ivy League degree and a great education. Harbaugh also cited the Catholic community as another benefit of the school. She appeared in 16 games for the Fighting Irish over three years before graduating early.
“After my junior year I wanted an opportunity to make a bigger impact on the field,” Harbaugh said. “When I found out I could graduate early I rolled with it and entered the portal.”
New University of South Florida Head Coach Mindy McCord immediately reached out to Harbaugh, who she tried to recruit to Jacksonville University out of high school. Harbaugh saw the benefit of the extra training year and the opportunity to help build the new program at USF as her main draws to Florida.
“She is the trend setter in the lacrosse world as a Harbaugh and she is doing some great things as a founder of the program at USF,” Coach McCord said. “These are things that no one in her prestigious sports family can really compare to and I’m so proud of her.”
A quiet leader on the team, Harbaugh, who is pursuing a masters in Intelligence Studies, sees herself as a role model for the younger athletes she is around at USF. She hopes that her teammates see her as someone who they can go to for advice because of her experience.
She has been given the nickname “Mee-maw” by her teammates.
Harbaugh found her own identity in lacrosse by playing as a low, left-handed, behind the net attacker. She sited her field vision as one of the skills she has developed naturally and has embraced it as part of her lacrosse identity.
While having access to an NFL facility has its benefits, Harbaugh has put in the extra effort to reach the level she is at today. She works out at 5:30 in the morning during breaks in order to get her workout in before the players arrive. Harbaugh also learned how to recover properly with foam rolling, stretching and nutrition to keep her body at a similar level to professional athletes.
“The biggest thing is you face your own challenges, and she has faced her challenges head on, and her successes head on in her own way, and you can only do it for yourself,” her father and Baltimore Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh said when asked about how Harbaugh has become her own person and athlete. “There’s only one you; there’s only one person that can ever be you and do you the way you do you. Be the person you are supposed to be, and she does it better than anyone I’ve ever seen. I’m so proud of her.”
While she will not be going into athletics like most of her family she will still be competing, not on the field but in the court room. Harbaugh will be attending law school in Chicago after graduating from USF this spring.
She hopes to be a good example for the young girls that attend the USF Women’s Lacrosse games and represent how an athlete should act on and off the field.