“Pressure is good,” Harbaugh said. “I would find it hard to do things, to be involved in things, if there weren’t some pressure. If it weren’t important enough to put some pressure on you, it wouldn’t be important enough to be involved in.”

Harbaugh, a 41-year football coaching veteran — 36 of those in the college ranks — was appointed to the position of asscoiate athletics director on June 1.

Harbaugh, 63, was the head football coach at Western Kentucky for 14 seasons, leading the Hilltoppers to a 91-68 record that included four NCAA I-AA playoff berths in the last six years.

In 2002, his last season as head coach, Harbaugh guided Western Kentucky to a 12-3 record and the NCAA I-AA national championship. Following the season, Harbaugh was selected the American Football Coaches Association National Coach of the Year, and soon after he was snapped up by Marquette. It was his successful coaching abilities and

leadership skills that attracted Cords to acquiring Harbaugh last summer.

“Jack is a leader with great vision, intergrity and a tremendous work ethic, all of which has take those he has worked for and with to the highest levels of success,” Cords said.

For Harbaugh, the idea of a Marquette family can be taken literally — his son-in-law is head basketball coach Tom Crean. That comfort level, as well as the help of Cords to ease his transition, has been a great help in what he is finding as an absence of football.

“It’s been difficult in some ways. For 41 years when you do something … you wake up in the morning and you think about football, and when you go to bed you think about football,” Harbaugh said. “You’re life is consumed with it — your family, everything — it’s just football,.

“I’ve really enjoyed the work with (athletic director) Bill Cords,” Harbaugh said. “I think he’s one of the very, very best in the country. He’s given me some responsibilities and I appreciate very much that he has the confidence in me to give me those responsibilities.”

He also served as the head football coach at Western Michigan for five years, and an assistant coach at Pittsburgh, Michigan, Iowa, Standford, Bowling Green and Morehead State. Harbaugh’s family was always involved with football as well.

His family includes wife Jackie and his children: John, an assistant football coach with the Philadelphia Eagles; Jim, a former All-Pro quarterback in the NFL who now serves as an assistant coach with the Oakland Raiders; and Joani, wife of head basketball coach Tom Crean. Harbaugh described wife Jackie as a “mother away from home” for his team at Western Kentucky, where she took a hands-on approach as the wife of the head coach. “I think my wife misses football right now more than I do,” Harbaugh said. “She used to tutor the guys and came to practices and games. But it helps that John and Jim are in football now. I still dream about football, about practice, games and situations, but when I wake up there’s no team there for me to have.”

Although the transition from a life of football to handling issues like marketing, the Blue and Gold Fund, and contract negotiations open a completely new chapter for Harbaugh, he still feels that daily pressure which makes the job worth doing.

“There’s different kinds of pressures in this job,” Harbaugh said. “I’d hate to wake up in the morning or do something that didn’t put some pressure on you, because it would be a job that probably wouldn’t be worth doing it. I look forward to contributing anyway i can to the successful athletic operation at Marquette.”