As the seconds ticked off the clock and the San Francisco 49ers failed to run back a Baltimore Ravens punt for a score, John Harbaugh could finally breathe.

His Ravens had won Super Bowl XLVII, 34-31, in front of a packed Mercedes-Benz Superdome crowd in New Orleans.

The game had been billed as a battle between two brothers, John and Jim Harbaugh.

But no storyline ever trumps the biggest game in the U.S. sporting world, no matter who’s involved.

What does trump winning the Super Bowl, though, is that John Harbaugh has a faith that means more than winning a game, as trivial or as important as we might think of it or make it.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned (this year) faith-wise is that God is in the driver’s seat,” Harbaugh told Sports Spectrum at Super Bowl Media Day in New Orleans. “That is what faith is. It’s the belief in the things that are unseen, that are uncertain, that we can’t be sure about. It’s a certain trust in life and in our Creator and God himself. I happen to be a Christian. That’s my faith. If you can do that, it brings you a peace. It brings you a certain peace that surpasses all understanding. I think if you have that, it gives you a chance to accomplish whatever it is you are supposed to accomplish.”

The peace that Harbaugh spoke of was missing from his life at one point, but when he gave the reins to God things began falling in place.

“The irony of the whole thing was when I finally gave up trying to move up in the profession, that’s when God took over and things that I hadn’t even dreamed possible … became realities,” Harbaugh says.

It’s just one example of the source of John Harbaugh’s success and is the reason why Sports Spectrum named him our co-coach of the year.

By Brett Honeycutt

This story was published in the January 2013 Sports Spectrum DigiMag.