So Harbaugh says Michigan is America's Team? Don't take his word for it

Apparently the title of "America's Team" is vacant, which can happen when you don't take care. So, let me say here at the beginning, whoever is "America's Team," it ain't Michigan.

I bring this up because Jim Harbaugh, the poster-dunce of Big Ten coaches, has managed among his other troubles to suggest that the team that he is not allowed to coach is what this country should be most proud of, excuse the preposition.

Harbaugh suggested that Michigan's "perseverance" and "stalwartness" qualify the Wolverines for special status. "America loves a team that beats the odds," Harbaugh said.

Checking the ubiquitous betting outlets (each in their own way competing to be America's Bookie) I found that the last time Michigan beat the odds Wilma was divorcing Fred.

This may seem like the old Buckeye in me coming out and maybe it is, but for those of us who always had to look up to Michigan, it being "up north" as Woody used to say, the idea that the nation might see itself in those bumptious, self-important knuckleheads from Ann Arbor is ... well, come to think of it, America to much of the world.

Still, when a team's signature emblem is a single serifed capital letter instead of a flowing full word from "O" to shining "O," the evidence is evident, and circular, like the sacred "O."

Where was I? Oh, yes. America's Team. From time to time it is necessary to review the mythical mountain of uber alles, where rests the capo di tutti capi (see how I cleverly inserted foreign phrases? Try that, Wolverine.) In English, the team of teams.

There are no criteria, no specifications to be met, in order to claim America's Team. There is only the cheek to say so, as many have from Atlanta to Coastal Carolina, leaving the matter in the adage of Judge Potter, "I know it when I see it."

The Cowboys of the NFL first accepted the term from a TV piece where the producer looked at the lone star on the Dallas helmet and concluded if you just added 49 more, you would have the field of the American flag.

We have gone to war with less logic, so America's Team the Cowboys became, challenged famously by Marv Levy, coach of the Buffalo Bills, who saw in the red, white and blue of his four-time Super Bowl losers the entire banner, leaving teams like the pastel clad Dolphins and grossly bedecked Packers with no chance, though each in their time - especially the mid-city Packers - could rightfully claim the title. Modestly, the Packers stick with "Titletown."

Pittsburgh, too, was ad hocked the term, but the Steelers declined, keeping their collars blue and their appeal local.

Gonzaga has lately taken the title suspiciously, being the perpetual nose-to-the-window overachiever, an easily accepted American image, but if college basketball has a national proxy it would be Duke, as insufferable, by the way, as is Michigan.

The 21st century Cowboys have fumbled the claim, leaving it to the Patriots - no more American name than Patriots, if not a usable defense for January 6 - but New England, like Michigan, I might add, is generally unliked beyond its own geography.

What makes America's Team? One way to tell is if more visitors show up for a team's home games than locals do. This would elevate the Cubs for sure, since no baseball team fills another's park like Cubs fans do.

Same with the Bears, so enamored of their cross-county appeal that they just assume everyone will follow them to the suburbs. Hey, the Rangers held their victory parade in Arlington, didn't they?

As for college football, it already has a national team, Notre Dame. From the lore of the Four Horsemen to the Gipper becoming president, the Irish have such a head start that not even their 21st century stumbles have been able to diminish their stature.

More still cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame than any other team, forgiving their wokeness when they added "daughters" to "sons" in the victory march.

But of all of America's Teams I have witnessed, I have to give the title to the '92 Olympic men's basketball team, slightly over the '80 Miracle on Ice hockey tykes, though the issue is open to all, as it should be, even to Michigan.