Revving up the Hoopla
Former MU coach to appear at event
On Friday evening, Marquette will bring back more than 100 former players and staff members and host more than 1,000 fans for its Hoopla event at the BMO Harris Bradley Center celebrating the centennial season of the men’s basketball program.
For one of them, it will be a rare reunion with the program.
Tom Crean, who coached the Golden Eagles from 19992008, will be one of 22 panelists at the event.
In his nine seasons, he led Marquette to five NCAA Tournament appearances, including its first Final Four since the Al McGuire era, before leaving for Indiana University.
Though his results while at Marquette rank him among the more successful head coaches in the school’s history, Crean remains a lightning-rod among fans. Some believe he should have had more success than he did at Marquette, as Crean’s teams never advanced past the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend outside of the Final Four run in 2003. Some also
haven’t forgiven him for his decision to leave in 2008.
With his appearance at the Hoopla coming, Crean spoke with the Journal Sentinel’s Matt Velazquez about his experience at Marquette, his decision to leave, his reaction to animosity from MU fans, what’s next for him after being fired at Indiana and more.
Q. What are your thoughts on coming back to Marquette and what does that mean to you?
A. It means a lot and for a lot of reasons. It was such a huge part of our life. Obviously, to have my daughter Megan, who just graduated from college, spend nine years there, my son Riley, who just graduated high school, to spend nine years there, I mean, those were so many important years familywise. But they were also important years for understanding what this is all about and what coaching and being a part of a team is so much about building relationships that stand the test of time and that last. For me it’s going to be great on so many levels to see so many people that we interacted with on a daily basis for two, three, fours years at a time and not to mention all the people that were supportive of Marquette or worked at Marquette, to be able to be around that for a day is going to be outstanding. I’m really, really excited to be coming back and I’m proud of the nine years that we had there and to be able to reflect a little bit on that along with what’s been an incredible history for Marquette over time.
Q. When you think back to your time at Marquette, obviously the people that you interacted with are so important, but do any events or any situations stand out to you now that you’ve had some time to reflect?
A. No, there’s really so many great memories. I think it’s because the longer you’re away from somewhere you don’t necessarily remember things in a proportional way in terms of this season or that season or this win or that win. What you think about is how you felt being there, to me. Memories of moments come up, memories of years come up, but it’s really the fact that you were with so many people that gave so much to it and now to look back to see how they’ve grown. One of my greatest ways to follow it is Instagram or my wife will be on Facebook with the families of the players, so you get a chance to see their kids grow up in pictures; well now it’s going to be kind of really nice to see them in person. I think to me that’s what it is more than anything else because we were all a part of really going after something constantly. Going after getting better, going after playing for championships, going after the very best practices and seasons that we could have. And when you go through that you go through a lot, you go through a lot of pluses, minuses, you have a lot of successes, you have adversities, and that’s the stuff that makes these bonds so great. When everything happened to me at Indiana in the middle of March, within five days I heard from eight different players on my first team at Marquette. To me that’s not common, right? That also doesn’t surprise me when you look at what we had there and what we were able to build over a period of time.
Q. Marquette is going all out for its Hoopla event celebrating its 100 years and is bringing back a large number of former players and coaches. Is this type of event rare? Is it something you have seen before?
A. I think people have done some good things, but I think this is uncommon in the sense that this takes a lot of thought, a lot of planning. I give credit to Steve (Wojciechowski) and the entire athletic (staff). You’ve got to have everybody on board for this; you’ve got to have the president, the board of trustees, the athletic department, a basketball coach with vision . ... I think that’s when Marquette is at its best and this is another example of that. And the fact that so many people are coming back for it, from everything that I’m hearing, speaks volumes about the way people feel about the school and the way they feel about their relationships.
Q. Many fans haven’t let go of animosity toward you since you left. Before games, they would regularly boo your brief presence in the “Remember the Titans” video before cheering loudly for Dwyane Wade. How do you feel about that, what do you expect your reception will be at Hoopla and are you excited to have the opportunity to interface with Marquette fans again?
A. I’ve heard that. My daughter was in the arena one time when the booing was there when she went back. I’ve heard about that in the past. In all honesty, I take that as a sign of respect because I think if we were losing and not doing well I think it’d be a different kind of booing, you know what I mean? I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t blame them, alright? I don’t blame them. We had a really good thing going there and I left for what I felt were the right reasons, but it was never anything against Marquette. It was never anything against Marquette. I mean, that didn’t even remotely fall into the realm of decision-making of deciding to go to Indiana. It was something that to me stood out as an opportunity to go to a program that I’d held in high regard for a long period of time. The way I look back at it now is that I had a chance to coach at two incredible places, first Marquette, which I was a fan of when I was a young person, and Indiana, which I was a fan of when I was a young person. I think, to me, I’ve never looked at that (booing) in a sense of frustration or animosity in my own mind. I’ve looked at that as a sign of respect and hopefully people will see that over a period of time because I loved it there, the part that we were a part of we loved it there and we did a lot of really good things. And I think for the most part people remember that and hopefully, for one night they’ll see that come forth because I’m really excited to have the opportunity to be back in that entire environment.
Q. How much did you keep an eye on Marquette over the past nine years? Did you keep tabs on what Marquette was up to?
A. Oh, absolutely. Certainly going back nine years ago Buzz Williams was on our staff and replaced me. I’ve been a Steve Wojciechowski fan for a long time. Travis Diener is not only a guy that I coached but also one of my closest friends now in life. I looked at that program always with a sign of respect. It’s like at Indiana — you can’t work at a place for nine years trying to make it better every day and doing everything you can do throughout that day to make it better to walk away and not want it to be successful. It was never that. I’ve always wanted Marquette to be successful and frankly, I want Indiana to be successful because you can’t turn it on and off like that, at least I can’t. Marquette treated me great and again, leaving was never about something that Marquette wasn’t or something that Marquette couldn’t be. Obviously we left a team that had four guys score over 1,600 points when you look back at the three with Wes Matthews, Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and then Lazar Hayward did the same. To me Marquette has always been a very close-knit environment. People care, there’s a lot of passion for it. Q. What’s next for you? A. I’m not sure right now. I think the most important thing is I want to coach again and I plan to coach again, but I want to coach again at a place that’s got championship capacity. Marquette has championship capacity, Indiana had that. I don’t want to take a step away from that. If that means this year very likely doing television then that’s great, because I want to do a great job at that and at the same time be ready if the opportunity presents itself to coach in a really strong program. I’ve learned a lot of lessons, especially over the last couple years at Indiana, not to mention my 18 years of being a head coach and the alignment and togetherness you have to have with the people that you’re working with is really, really important. The ability to have players that have a competitive desire to keep getting better is really important. Well, it’s the same thing with your administration. You’ve got to be in an environment where it’s finding that winning edge and helping people be their very best inside of the winning edge, not in spite of it, but inside of the winning edge is really, really important. That’s what I’ll look forward to.