Jim Harbaugh has successfully persuaded one of the top high school coaches in the country to come join his staff in Ann Arbor.
In this particular case, it's actually a return to the Wolverines staff.
Biff Poggi, the 61-year old head coach at St. Frances (MD), is leaving the Baltimore Catholic school to rejoin Harbaugh's staff.
The Baltimore Sun was among the first to share the news.
At St. Frances, Poggi was much more than just a head coach. With his deep pockets, he helped to build the program into the national power that it is now where they proudly play a national schedule of some of the top teams in the country.
Like his last time with the program, his title in Ann Arbor will be assistant head coach and this time he will help Harbaugh mentor young assistants and work with the Wolverines offensive line. He spent just one season on the staff then before leaving for St. Frances.
"I’m going to Michigan with the idea that I’m going to be there until I finish coachin. I’ll be there, I hope, as long as Jim is there and wants me to stay there.
"If he goes someplace else or doesn’t want me to stay, then I’d look at other opportunities,” Poggi shares in the Baltimore Sun piece.
Poggi previously left his post as the head coach at Gilman HS (MD), where over 19 seasons he built the program up to a top 15 national ranking before leaving to join Jim Harbaugh's Wolverines staff in 2016 as associate head coach and special advisor. He worked on special projects for Harbaugh that season in addition to his other duties, and was an instrumental piece in their trip to Rome that off season, and legend has it he even put the team's hotel rooms on his own credit card for the trip.
At the time, Poggi's son, Henry, was a fullback for the Wolverines.
That same offseason, Poggi also had an offer on the table to join DJ Durkin's staff at Maryland.
Before helping two Maryland high schools become national powers, Poggi served as an assistant at Brown, The Citadel, and Temple.
As for St. Frances, Messay Hailemariam will step into the head coaching role, a position he held with the school from 2011-2015.
St. Frances was the subject of an ESPN documentary a few years ago titled The Cost of Winning and prior to the 2018 season the teams in their league and some traditionally powerful teams in the area refused to play them, citing safety concerns, prompting Poggi to take his team all over the country to play.
Head here to read the full piece from Childs Walker and the Baltimore Sun.