As it currently stands, Jim Harbaugh and the #2 Michigan Wolverines stand the best chance of rising up and upheaving the #1 and currently defending champion Alabama Crimson Tide. Harbaugh still needs to win six more games to get his shot at Nick Saban, and when the moment comes he’ll be the rebels, not the empire.
The Tide got 66 of 67 first place votes this past week. That lone dissenter voted Michigan #1, and the Wolverines have certainly put together a body of work worthy of receiving more votes: 63-3 over Hawaii, 51-14 versus Central Florida, 49-10 thrashing of Penn State, the notorious and ridiculous 78-0 utter destruction of Rutgers.
That’s domination on par with the presence Hamilton has in popular culture right now. Lin Manuel-Miranda’s transcendent musical, a Biggie vs. Tupac meets 1776 meets Schoolhouse Rock meets something he can’t even describe because it’s so ground-breaking is the second hottest ticket in the country right now.
It took the act of God known as the Chicago Cubs in the World Series to surpass Hamilaria in the top spot. Last Friday night, PBS aired a documentary on the musical and its backstory, entitled “Hamilton’s America.”
The official hashtag, #HamilDocPBS, was the #1 trending term nationally on Twitter all night long. It’s a juggernaut, just like Jim Harbaugh, and you’ll find some commonalities between the two.
Miranda based his musical on Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton, so before “conducting the analysis” for this “article,” we made sure we would stick to only the historically accurate material in the play. It’s amazing.
Ideas and Methods that Defy Convention
Hamilton was truly a revolutionary, and a man we’d describe as “ballsy” if he were alive today. Like the rest of the founding fathers, they did not know the revolution was inevitable. They all would have been hung for treason if the British won. While Jim Harbaugh is not really a dissident-in-khakis, he’s very unconventional, anti-establishment and unorthodox.
“He’s a breath of fresh air for college football,” said FOX Analyst Joel Klatt.
“I love college football more than anything, other than my own family. I love this sport. It oozes out of me, and I’ve become very passionate about it, but because of that, there are things within the sport that are maddening to me. And part of that, I believe at times we are some of the most archaic, stuffy and stodgy of any of the sports out there.”
“Almost worse than baseball, to give you a frame of reference, baseball people will just refuse to budge off of the quote, un quote, old guard.”
#HamildocPBS was 136% above the PBS average for 2016 Friday night premieres https://t.co/Vv7h2c8sc9 pic.twitter.com/yw0kTVxSvb
— Playbill (@playbill) October 26, 2016
“Jim Harbaugh questions the establishment. He presses those buttons and he presses those boundaries, and we’re in desperate need of that as a college football entity,” Klatt continued.
We’ve covered this specific topic, how Harbaugh’s zaniness, quirks, eccentricities etc. are all very vital for the long term health of college football, at this link.
Extreme Ambition/Unrivaled Competitiveness
Hamilton “will never be satisfied,” as the musical teaches us, and that’s universal among all historians. Alexander Hamilton possessed an Alexander the Great style ambition much like Jim Harbaugh has a Michael Jordan sized competitiveness. Both men are/were totally off-the-charts regarding the desire to achieve.
Never stop. Never settle. No matter what.
Never Achieved the Big Prize
Despite their insane work ethic, there’s still a glaring hole on the resume. Hamilton never achieved the presidency, and he’s just one of two men who landed on our currency despite never ascending that high. Benjamin Franklin is the other. For all the big wins and huge achievements in his football career, John Harbaugh has a Super Bowl championship ring in his possession, Jim Harbaugh does not.
Sibling rivalry indeed.
The Cult of Personality and Connections to Hip-Hop
Alexander Hamilton seemed to be the smartest in the room despite whatever room he was in. Or at least he acted like it, and most of the people in “the room where it happens,” seemed to comply.
Along those lines, Jim Harbaugh is the rock star celebrity of college football right now. At B1G Media Day, it was Harbaugh, not Urban Meyer, Mark Dantonio or Lovie Smith who was top cat at the college gridiron media event of the summer. This alpha male on steroids mentality is married to hip-hop, and Hamilton is obviously influenced by Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Eminem, D12 among others.
And you know Harbaugh can rap, and if you don’t know, now you know, know…..when clicking on this link.
Not one, but Two Major Rivals
Okay, so lot’s of people that history has their eyes on are brilliantly unconventional and one-in-a-million ambitious, you can easily find parallels there. However, how many larger than life figures do you come across who have two major rivals? By definition, an individual’s world is not wide enough for two rivals; only one.
Hamilton had Aaron Burr, who was seemingly in competition with him for similar positions as both men rose through the ranks. As you know from history, it ended in a deadly duel. Hamilton also had another rival, Thomas Jefferson, with whom he clashed on almost every single socioeconomic and political issue.
Likewise, Michigan has not one, but two major rivals- Michigan State and Ohio State.
Aaron Burr is probably Michigan St. while Ohio St. is Thomas Jefferson. That’s another analogy for another time though.
The Biggest Superpower
Looking at all time B1g championships, Michigan has the most at 42. Ohio State is second at 35. Just a couple weeks ago, UM passed up Notre Dame for the all-time highest winning percentage. For total all time wins, they continue to remain in first place by a wide margin.
That’s how you could describe America’s place in the global economy. And it was Alexander Hamilton who conceived and founded our financial system.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.