ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Across the country from Michigan Stadium, several hundred people gathered Saturday morning in the performing arts center at Auburn High School just outside of Seattle.

The crowd was there to celebrate the life of Kellen Kiilsgaard, a two-sport star who graduated from the school in 2007. Kiilsgaard was an all-state quarterback and defensive back, a big-time baseball prospect and a dedicated student with a 3.95 GPA. While vacationing in Hawaii during his senior year of high school, Kiilsgaard saved a man and his 7-year-old daughter from drowning.

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“We already thought he was like Superman before he did this,” Kiilsgaard’s baseball coach, Tim Kuykendall, told the Seattle Times in 2007. “It makes you wonder, ‘Is this guy for real?’”

When Kiilsgaard was picking a college, he had one stipulation: As he told the Seattle Times, the school had to be close to an airport with flights on Alaska Airlines. His sister worked for the airline, which meant his family could fly for free to watch his games.

When Killsgaard committed to Stanford, the football program was in the midst of a 1-11 season under Walt Harris. A few months before signing day, Stanford fired Harris and hired a new coach from the University of San Diego.

That coach, Jim Harbaugh, was in the crowd Saturday as friends, family members and teammates shared memories of Kiilsgaard, who died last month of undisclosed causes. Kiilsgaard played one season on the Stanford football team before concentrating on baseball, so his time with Harbaugh was brief. Nonetheless, Harbaugh’s unplanned absence from the Michigan football team freed him to make the cross-country trip to pay his respects to a member of his first Stanford recruiting class.

“For him to make the trip from Michigan to Washington was not an easy thing,” said Kent Rodseth, a family friend of the Kiilsgaards and the football coach at nearby Auburn Mountainview High School. “I think it shows a lot about the side of Jim Harbaugh that a lot of people don’t see or understand.”

After the service, Harbaugh watched on his computer as Michigan beat Bowling Green 31-6. When the game ended, so did Harbaugh’s three-game school-imposed suspension. By Monday, he was back in Ann Arbor and brimming with ideas that came to him while he watched his team on the screen.

“If I seem a little bit distracted, it’s because I’ve got so much on my mind,” Harbaugh said during his Monday news conference. “Hopefully we can keep this a little bit short because there’s so much to do.”

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Facing allegations that he failed to cooperate with an NCAA investigation into alleged rules violations, Harbaugh was hit with the three-game school-imposed suspension in August after Michigan and the NCAA couldn’t agree on a negotiated resolution. When the suspension was handed down, Harbaugh compared it to a “baseball bat to the kneecaps” and scoffed at the suggestion that it amounted to a three-week vacation.

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Harbaugh wasn’t laughing then, but his weekly itinerary did provide a few moments of levity. He isn’t a Peacock subscriber, so he watched the first game with offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore, who was also suspended. The next week, Harbaugh mowed the lawn before and after the game and made a halftime trip to McDonald’s. He also worked the chains for his son Jack’s youth football team, which was an act of atonement for forgetting to bring snacks and Gatorade.

Harbaugh contended the snacks were nonessential. The kids disagreed.

“They had a counterpoint, and I had a counterpoint, which was: Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘An army travels best on an empty stomach?’” Harbaugh said on his weekly radio show. “No. They had not heard that phrase.”

Harbaugh’s suspension had its lighthearted moments, but it was serious, too. Before missing Michigan’s season opener, he’d coached 248 games in college and the NFL. Most of his life has revolved around the football calendar. He has watched games on the couch before, but never games involving his team.

The experience isn’t one he wants to repeat. With his suspension complete, Harbaugh said he would implement policies — details not disclosed — to “make sure I don’t ever get sidelined again.” It’s possible he could face additional penalties stemming from Michigan’s NCAA infractions case, though any sanctions tacked on by the NCAA are unlikely to come until 2024.

Harbaugh’s suspension applied to games only, so it’s not as though he’s been absent from Schembechler Hall. Still, players said they noticed an uptick in energy this week, a product of Harbaugh’s return and the start of Big Ten play Saturday against Rutgers.

“It’s just a little more juice in the building,” edge rusher Jaylen Harrell said.

Harbaugh’s return comes at a pivotal time for the Wolverines, who are 3-0 but haven’t played their best football so far this season. Players didn’t pin the slow start on Harbaugh’s absence or the revolving door of stand-in head coaches, but there’s no denying it was a disruption from the norm. Instead of shifting in and out of different roles, Michigan’s assistant coaches will be able to focus on their individual responsibilities and leave the head coaching duties to Harbaugh.

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“I think our team feeds off of his leadership,” said defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who filled in for Harbaugh in Michigan’s first game. “He breathes his confidence into our players. I expect the guys to be pretty excited to run out of the tunnel with him this week.”

No one will be more excited than Harbaugh. The time away wasn’t all bad: Harbaugh said he learned things about himself and his team while watching from afar, insights that wouldn’t have occurred to him in the heat of the moment. He watched his son play football and paid his respects to one of his first Stanford recruits. For three weekends, he saw how the rest of us live.

“I went to a place I’ve never been, which wasn’t on the sideline,” Harbaugh said.

Now that he’s back, the rest will have to wait. His Saturdays are spoken for again.

(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)