In one of the strangest sports hires I’ve ever seen, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay has hired Doug Gottlieb as their men’s basketball head coach. Gottlieb is an outspoken and somewhat controversial media personality who will continue to host a two-hour national radio show daily while attempting to run a Division I basketball program. On the surface, it sounds like a disaster to juggle a two-hour radio show, with its preparation, along with shootarounds, practice, games, travel, recruiting, fundraising, etc. I’m not sure how Fox Sports would even sign off on allowing him to continue to work his radio show while having another job. It’s far from ideal and the fear is neither job gets the best, with Gottlieb spread thin.
Gottlieb’s Background
Gottlieb played college basketball at Notre Dame, JUCO, and Oklahoma State, and then spent three seasons playing professional ball mostly overseas. Along with then-University of Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, Gottlieb helped coach the United States team at the 2009 Maccabiah Games. He coached Team USA in basketball at the 2017 Maccabiah Games, winning a gold medal as the USA defeated France in the final in Jerusalem. He also has some AAU coaching experience and comes from a coaching family. His father was a college basketball coach, and his older brother is currently coaching on the women’s side of college basketball at San Diego State.
Family Connection Could Be Key
How I think this has a chance to work is if Gottlieb brings his brother on, or someone whom he can fully trust and delegate many of the mundane daily coaching duties to. Enter in Brother Gregg Gottlieb.
Gregg Gottlieb
Previous Coaching Experience: 2020-23: Grand Canyon (women’s assistant) 2014-20: Oregon State (men’s assistant) 2008-14: California (men’s assistant) 1999-07: San Diego State (men’s assistant) 1997-99: Sacramento State (men’s assistant) 1995-97: Cal Poly (men’s assistant)
His brother is a serious coach, having coached for 12 years in the Pac-12 at Oregon State and Cal, and another 7 with Steve Fisher at San Diego State. If he brings him on to run the day-to-day operations, then that is the best-case scenario. Gregg Gottlieb has a resume that could justify being the head coach himself, so if Doug Gottlieb delegates most of the job to him then it has a chance. The novelty and celebrity perhaps will attract a few players. He can probably attract some NIL money that a normal coach couldn’t to Green Bay with Doug Gottlieb as the front man so to speak. Also Gottlieb himself is pretty well to do you would think, and could probably fund some of his own NIL to a degree. He has two jobs with 2 salaries.
It wouldn’t take much in the horizon to position yourself for success and he has a vested interest in succeeding. I’m surprised more coaches don’t treat it like an investment and fund some of their own NIL. In fact the next stage some AD might come up with could be hiring a bored billionaire or rich person to coach similar to how Coastal Carolina football hired the former TD Ameritrade CEO.
Conclusion:
All in all, I think this has disaster potential, and the most likely outcome is for it to fail. However if he brings his brother or someone he can fully trust to run the day-to-day operations, is smart enough to delegate all of that to them, then I would give it some chance. If you are his brother, or someone that takes on the expanded assistant role, you would also be in a good position if you were successful and Gottlieb got a larger job to be promoted to head coach, so there is incentive for a quality assistant to take on this role. Who he hires on staff is absolutely crucial.
Regardless, it has made news. It may only be 15 minutes if they have little success, but there is no chance I would have dedicated a full article to this hire if it wasn’t so outrageous. At first I would have given it no chance but there is a path to success I’ve laid out and It will be interesting to follow.
