Jan. 14, 2014

By Doug Farrar | SI.com

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll and San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh have known each other for a long time -- by Carroll's estimation, the two probably first met when Carroll was the New York Jets' defensive coordinator and Harbaugh was the Chicago Bears' starting quarterback in the early 1990s.

The professional and personal competitions between the two men didn't really start until Harbaugh took the Stanford head coach position before the 2007 season and started to make life more difficult for Carroll's USC Trojans. That begat the "What's your deal?" game, and a compelling series of battles between the teams coached by both men that has expanded into the NFL's best current rivalry.

But Harbaugh really came into Carroll's orbit a bit before Stanford. When he was the head coach for the San Diego Toreros from 2004 through '06, Harbaugh sought to recruit a quarterback from Palos Verdes Peninsula High in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., by the name of Nate Carroll. Yes, that's Pete Carroll's youngest of two sons, currently an offensive assistant for his dad's team.

"He did recruit my son to go to the University of San Diego," Carroll recalled Monday "I wasn't there for the home visit though, Glena [Carroll's wife] took that one."

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