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<p>CHICAGO &#8212; Presenting the pope with a Michigan football helmet and a pair of Air Jordans wasn&#8217;t the only highlight in Jim Harbaugh &#8216;s trip to Rome this spring.</p><p>The jaunt went so well that you half-expected the Wolverines coach to pull out a map and show slides of his young squad sampling historical sites instead of answering the usual questions during his appearance at the Big Ten media days event Tuesday.</p><p>&#8220;The best thing I&#8217;ve ever done personally as a part of a football team,&#8221; Harbaugh said.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re at the Colosseum, at the Forum, and you learn so many things along the way,&#8221; he marveled a moment later. &#8220;The Colosseum has been around for 600 years, it&#8217;s been active for 600 years. Around here, 30, 40 years as a stadium and they tear it down. Amazing, really.&#8221;</p><p>Whether Harbaugh asked the pontiff to bless Michigan&#8217;s fortunes this season wasn&#8217;t known. But it would be hard to blame him for asking.</p><p>After starting last season with nine straight wins, the Wolverines staggered home by losing three of their last four, including a heart-breaking, double-overtime clunker to Ohio State in Columbus and then a 33-32 loss to Florida State at the Orange Bowl.</p><p>On top of that, Harbaugh lost more starters than any major college team &#8212; 17, assuming Wilton Speight returns at quarterback &#8212; and all but one on what was the top-ranked defense in America. He&#8217;ll also be fielding one of the youngest teams in the game.</p><p>On the flip side, after adapting to players brought in by predecessor Brady Hoke, Harbaugh finally will have a majority of his recruits in the lineup. Several members of last year&#8217;s highly touted class &#8212; Rashan Gary, Chris Evans, Michael Onwenu and Devin Bush Jr. &#8212; could be on the verge of breakout years.</p><p>&#8220;The amount of growth that you can have from doing something for the first time and then doing it the next time or the second time, can be the biggest leap they have their entire college year, going from freshman year to sophomore year,&#8221; Harbaugh said. &#8220;So I&#8217;m excited for that class.&#8221;</p><p>It remains to be seen whether Harbaugh&#8217;s sometimes-wacky bonding experiments will pay dividends soon enough to get past rival Ohio State and end Michigan&#8217;s 13-year title drought. But it should be evident whether the trip to Rome was a success in terms of team-building, since Michigan opens the season Sept. 2 with a stern test against Florida in Arlington, Texas.</p><p>&#8220;Ninety percent of us had never been out the country before,&#8221; junior center Mason Cole said. &#8220;To go to a foreign country, play football and experience their culture, that really cannot be matched. The only way you&#8217;re going to learn stuff like that is by doing it.&#8221;</p><p>No one is more eager to find out how much the Wolverines have learned than Harbaugh himself. He won&#8217;t have to wait long.</p><p>&#8220;Probably a good factor in giving us motivation and to get ready because we know just how good they are,&#8221; he said about the Gators. &#8220;And college football has always been unique.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the only sport that I can think of that doesn&#8217;t have a preseason or exhibition season. No spring training, no preseason game. So you go right into your first game,&#8221; he said, breaking into a wide smile, &#8220;and that counts.&#8221;</p><p>But even if Michigan winds up on the wrong side of the opener, Harbaugh has already announced next season&#8217;s team-building trip. He&#8217;s taking the Wolverines to Paris, with stops at the Versailles Palace and beaches at Dunkirk.</p><p>&#8220;Lot to do there,&#8221; Harbaugh cracked.</p><p><strong>Illinois to follow Indiana </strong></p><p><strong>with strict domestic abuse policy</strong></p><p>CHICAGO &#8212; Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman says there are plans to bar athletes with a history of sexual or domestic abuse from participating in sports.</p><p>The proposed plan could go into effect for the coming academic year and would make Illinois the second Big Ten school, after Indiana, to raise the off-field standards for athletes in the last four months.</p><p>Whitman told the Chicago Tribune that while the school had few reservations about going forward with the new policy, officials wanted a review or appeals process in place for unique cases.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s one of the primary reservations,&#8221; he told the newspaper. &#8220;I do believe in second chances.&#8221;</p><p>Big Ten officials decided that member schools were in better position to judge such cases on an individual basis.</p><p>&#8220;The conference office a), doesn&#8217;t have the facts, and b), grinding a policy together in a way that could be easily implemented across 14 institutions and 2,500 incoming students annually would be sort of a heavier lift than what they felt we could do well,&#8221; Commissioner Jim Delany said at Big Ten media days.</p><p>In April, Indiana athletic director Fred Glass announced the school would not accept &#8220;any prospective student-athlete &#8212; whether a transfer student, incoming freshman or other status &#8212; who has been convicted of or pleaded guilty or no contest to a felony involving sexual violence.&#8221;</p><p>It defined sexual violence as &#8220;dating violence, domestic violence, rape, sexual assault or sexual violence as defined by the Indiana University policy on sexual misconduct.&#8221;</p><p>The Illinois policy is expected to include similar wording.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh speaks at Big Ten Media Day in Chicago on Tuesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/web1_Harbaugh-BigTen2017.jpg</photo0><caption0>Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh speaks at Big Ten Media Day in Chicago on Tuesday. </caption0><photoCredit0>G-Jun Yam | AP photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Michigan head coach talks whirlwind summer</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jim Litke</p><p>AP Sports Writer</p></bylineMeta></div>

Harbaugh takes centerstage at Big Ten media