When Michigan faces Alabama in Monday’s Rose Bowl, Jim Harbaugh will become the 12th man to have both played in and served as a head coach in the game, but his relationship with the “Grandaddy of Them All” goes back much farther than that.

Harbaugh was born in Ohio but lived throughout the Midwest while his father, Jack, served as an assistant coach at various stops. It was then that the young Jim’s fascination with the Rose Bowl really was born.

“I grew up in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin — that Midwest area; you grew up watching the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day,” Harbaugh said during Sunday’s Rose Bowl coach’s press conference. “There’s a couple of feet of snow outside and you’re laying on your stomach in front of the TV, hands (on your chin) looking at palm trees and the parade and the football game.

“Halftime, we’re outside playing football in the snow. And then watching as it kind of turns from the day to the night when you watch the Rose Bowl. I know that’s why a lot of people in the Midwest probably move to California. You want to be there.”

Jack Harbaugh was defensive backs coach at Michigan under Bo Schembechler from 1973-79, with the Wolverines playing in the Rose Bowl in the final three of those seasons. Those three years were the younger Harbaugh’s first — but not last — up-close experience with the Rose Bowl.

Jim Harbaugh signed with Michigan out of Palo Alto (Calif.) High School in 1982, while Jack was an assistant at Stanford. He was a freshman being redshirted on the Wolverines’ 1983 Rose Bowl team, but became starting quarterback during his redshirt sophomore season of 1984.

Harbaugh led Michigan to the Big Ten title as a senior in 1986. The Wolverines lost the Rose Bowl 22-15 to Arizona State on New Year’s Day 1987, his final college game.

Michigan’s head coach since 2015, he has the Wolverines back in Pasadena for the first time in 17 years. He joins College Football Hall-of-Famer Bump Elliott (1948 and 1965) as the only men to have led Michigan to the Rose Bowl as both a player and head coach.

“I got to be there as a player and got to actually be there as a kid because my dad was a coach at Michigan and he went to three straight Rose Bowls. It will be pretty awesome to participate as an 11-, 12-, 13-year-old, twice as a player and now as a coach.”

Kickoff for Monday’s Rose Bowl game is set for 4 p.m. Central, with television coverage on ESPN.

Here is the complete list of men who have both played in and coached in the Rose Bowl. Playing school listed first, coaching school or schools listed second (listed in chronological order):

• Shy Huntington, Oregon

Played 1917; Coached 1920

• Tommy Prothro, Duke/Oregon State, UCLA

Played 1942/Coached 1957, 1963, 1966

• Chuck Taylor, Stanford

Played 1941/Coached 1952

• Jess Hill, USC

Played 1930/Coached 1953, 1955

• Pete Elliott, Michigan/Cal, Illinois

Played 1948/Coached 1959, 1964

• Bump Elliott, Michigan

Played 1948/Coached 1965

• John Robinson, Oregon/USC

Played 1958/Coached 1977, 1979, 1980, 1996

• Terry Donahue, UCLA

Played 1966/Coached 1983, 1984, 1986

• Rick Neuheisel, UCLA/Washington

Played 1984/Played 2001

• Bob Stoops, Iowa/Oklahoma

Played 1982/Coached 2003

• Bret Bielema, Iowa/Wisconsin

Played 1991/Coached 2011, 2012

• Jim Harbaugh, Michigan

Played 1987/Coached 2024