INGLEWOOD — Jim Harbaugh stood behind a lectern stationed between two clusters of native plants. He wore a dark blue suit, a white shirt, a gold tie and wire-rimmed glasses for his introductory press conference on Thursday, a commanding presence on a stage inside a darkened, 6,000-seat theater.
The Chargers could have held it at their temporary headquarters in Costa Mesa or at their still-to-be-completed facility in El Segundo. But they went big, determining it was important to put Harbaugh in front of bright lights and cameras and reporters and his new employers, the Spanos family.
Harbaugh, 60, answered questions for nearly an hour, a session that was short on specifics and long on the sort of rah-rah, let’s-get-after-it cliches you might have expected to hear at a corporate sales retreat. It was more like a political rally, with homespun tales and midwestern charm.
“We want to have a team Vince Lombardi would be proud of,” Harbaugh said at one point near the end, referring to the legendary Green Packers coach of yesteryear, the man for whom the NFL’s championship trophy is named. “We want to be world champions. We’re going to do it or die trying.”
How might a middling Chargers franchise actually win a championship? How might they take advantage of the remarkable talents of quarterback Justin Herbert and his teammates? How might they edge further into the Los Angeles sports landscape? How will the coaching staff be assembled?
These and other specific questions largely went unanswered beyond a string of platitudes that might have enthralled a gathering of alumni and boosters at the University of Michigan, Harbaugh’s previous place of employment. But it had some reporters rolling their eyes as the afternoon wore on.
Harbaugh did allow that his priority would be assembling his coaching staff now that Baltimore Ravens director of player personnel Joe Hortiz had been hired as general manager. Harbaugh said the process was ongoing and declined…
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