By Arnie Stapleton
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS - Tom Crean would be just as comfortable running the 3-4 defense as the 2-3 zone. Basketball is in his blood, but the 37-year-old Marquette coach married into a football family when he walked down the aisle with Joani Harbaugh a decade ago.

Her father is Jack Harbaugh, who retired this year after leading Western Kentucky to the Division I-AA football title.

And her brothers are John Harbaugh, special teams coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, and Jim Harbaugh, the former NFL quarterback who now coaches with the Oakland Raiders.

"I love football and I was fortunate to marry into it," Crean said.

He has learned plenty from his in-laws, too.

"When Jim was playing, I learned a ton about what players go through, what a player responds to, good and bad," Crean said. "I think that helped my coaching."

From John Harbaugh, he learned about work ethic and "how an NFL team does it, how they break up their week, the systematic approach."

Those are lessons he used during the long week between Marquette's stunning rout of top-ranked Kentucky and Saturday's semifinal against Kansas.

"And then my father-in-law just taught me a ton about coaching and life in general," Crean said. "He left Western Kentucky as a national champion and every day he went into that office and onto that practice field to make his team better."

Every day Crean takes the lessons gleaned from the gridiron and applies them to the hardwood.

"Sports are all parallel," he said. "It's all about building relationships and finding ways to get the most out of people. I know a lot of football men and I steal ideas from them all."

Being a full-fledged member of a football family, it's easy to see why he counts Bill Parcells of the Dallas Cowboys as his coaching idol.

The dynamo who has led the Golden Eagles to the Final Four in just his fourth season never stops bounding up and down the sidelines, hollering instructions at his players.

Crean's frenetic style is a hodgepodge of all the men who have influenced him. But the men he admires the most come from the football fraternity more so than his basketball brethren.

Not that he doesn't appreciate men like Kansas coach Roy Williams, or Jud Heathcote, Ralph Willard and Tom Izzo, all of whom hired and nurtured him.

There's just something about Parcells.

"You know what? I don't know him," Crean admitted. "The guy just looks like he loves coaching football, and he's an incredible motivator of people and he's had success wherever he's been. I think the greatest coaches are the hungriest to continue to win and the hungriest to continue to learn."

Crean said he carries Parcells' book, "Finding a Way to Win," in his gym bag everywhere he goes.

Crean isn't as gruff as Parcells - or Bob Knight or Bob Huggins - but he does let his players know exactly how he feels, and usually at an earsplitting volume.

Dwyane Wade, Crean's prized recruit and Marquette's first All-American in a quarter century, said players see Crean as a father figure practicing tough love.

"You don't really want a guy to go easy on you because we wouldn't be here if he did," Wade said. "Right after he gets on you, you still know that he loves you in his heart. If he's screaming at you, that's good. If he's silent, it's not."

And their ears are usually ringing with the mile-a-minute wisdom of Crean, who knew so early this was his calling that he tagged along with his high school coach to scout opponents.

Crean's name now comes up whenever a big-time job becomes available, including North Carolina's this week.

"You'd rather be known for that than to be on a hot seat," Crean said. "The only time it's a problem for me is when it comes up in recruiting, and it does."

Crean got into coaching at the high school level while he was still an undergraduate at Central Michigan. Heathcote hired him right out of college at Michigan State.

After working for Willard at Western Kentucky and Pittsburgh, Crean returned to East Lansing and became Izzo's top assistant and chief recruiter, helping lure Mateen Cleaves to the program.

Even while he was with the Spartans, he admired football coach Nick Saban, who is now at LSU and has an invitation to be Crean's guest Saturday night.

"My in-laws say it best, they think he's one of the best football coaches at any level," Crean said. "In my four years around him, I sure saw that. He's demanding, a great motivator, yet unbelievably knowledgeable about the game and what it takes to win.

"And that's why he's a guy who had the success he had at Michigan State and came here and won in no time flat."

Sort of like what Crean has done at Marquette.