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    • Green Bay basketball coach Doug Gottlieb tries his hand at coaching and radio
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    Green Bay basketball coach Doug Gottlieb tries his hand at coaching and radio

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    STILLWATER – Doug Gottlieb crouched in a defensive stance, as he had done so many times on this floor. He knelt. Bent over like a football coach, hands on knees. Gottlieb wandered outside his coaching box and crept a little too far onto the field.

    Gottlieb wore a suit, dressed like a coach from a bygone era – albeit with white sneakers.

    “Coach Sutton always wore a suit,” Gottlieb said.

    Gottlieb took off his jacket at halftime, revealing a sweat-soaked shirt. His green tie matched that of the Green Bay Phoenix.

    Gottlieb certainly looked the part of a Division I men’s basketball coach.

    A few hours earlier, Gottlieb looked every bit like a radio host. He was at Eskimo Joe’s, the famed Stillwater restaurant and an old haunt of Gottlieb’s. Flanked by two producers, Gottlieb wore a headset and a team-issued jersey. He recorded an hour-long podcast and then did two hours of live radio – “The Doug Gottlieb Show” on Fox Sports Radio.

    It was a bizarre scene. He was blocks away from Gallagher-Iba Arena, where Gottlieb played as a player for Oklahoma State and would soon make his debut as a coach. The visiting coach.

    In the afternoon he talked about the Cowboys and Green Bay. The Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers. He then coached Green Bay against the Cowboys.

    That’s Doug’s duality. Is he a national sports talk radio host who happens to coach college basketball? Or is he a college basketball coach who also does radio?

    For now, the answer is both.

    More: Oklahoma State basketball races past Green Bay as the Cowboys win Steve Lutz’s coaching debut

    It’s gimmicky. Not seriously even. But Gottlieb is dead serious about it. He tries to prove that he can have his fries and eat them too.

    “It brings continued positive attention to our school,” Gottlieb said. “I am a walking billboard for Green Bay as a city and as a university.”

    Give it to Gottlieb. We’ve never seen anything like it.

    He opened his show Monday with an emotional 14-minute monologue about how much OSU meant to him. How a kid who grew up in California and was kicked out of Notre Dame after his freshman year found a home in Stillwater, where he became the Cowboys’ all-time leader in assists.

    “This is a school that changed my life,” Gottlieb choked up on his show.

    Then Gottlieb opened the second part of his show with this: “The Dallas Cowboys stink.”

    What a twist, huh?

    He later spoke about the fallout from Dennis Allen’s firing by the New Orleans Saints. How confident are we that OSU coach Steve Lutz could even mention the former coach of the Saints, let alone respond to his firing? The fact that he knows that information does not make Gottlieb a lesser coach, but he does have more unnecessary sports information in his head than any of his peers.

    “The truth is,” Gottlieb said of Allen, “I didn’t know until 30 minutes before the show.”

    But you better believe Gottlieb knew the Saints had lost seven straight after a 2-0 start.

    That’s his job. One of them, at least.

    It’s not just that he’s a radio host and coaches. He has to pay attention to everything, otherwise he sounds unprepared. That takes time. Just like coaching basketball is much more than a 40-minute job. Recruiting takes time. Handling an administration takes time. The same goes for boosters. Practicing, traveling and putting out fires takes time.

    More: How Oklahoma State basketball coach Steve Lutz attacks the rebuild is the only way he knows

    Gottlieb downplays the stress of his dual role.

    Radio comes naturally to him, dating back to his WWLS-The Sports Animal days.

    “In national radio you do what’s called tree-topping,” Gottlieb said. “You have to know the highlights of the big stories. Like, I don’t need to know about all the different play calling and whatever with Mike Gundy. I need to know that they have the worst defense in the country, and how the heck did a team go from being top-15 in the preseason and everyone was so excited that they had some injuries and everything fell apart.

    I asked Gottlieb what he would say to people who doubt his ability to work two jobs. (I’m one of them, by the way, and Gottlieb could see it.)

    “Watch the games, watch how our players play and how they handle themselves,” Gottlieb said. “Ask my boss if I have a good program… I can’t really say anything. Our team motto is ‘walk the walk’, and it’s exactly the same. There’s nothing you can say that proves anything. It’s just what you do. You judge someone based on their actions.”

    Gottlieb has long said he wanted to be a coach, but his actions didn’t back up those words. He wanted to become a coach without working to become a coach. He didn’t try to move up. Instead, he rose to sports radio stardom. Which is great for him.

    Gottlieb, who has publicly run for the OSU job, was a legitimate candidate in 2017 when OSU hired Mike Boynton. He wasn’t a legitimate candidate this time around when OSU hired Steve Lutz from Western Kentucky to replace Boynton.

    “They didn’t want to hire someone who wasn’t a head coach,” Gottlieb said.

    Gottlieb spoke again about how much OSU meant to him.

    “Means,” Gottlieb interjected.

    More: Oklahoma State men’s basketball roster: A look at the 2024-25 OSU Cowboys

    Even though he wasn’t considered for the job by OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg?

    “I know it would have been a try for Chad,” Gottlieb said. “I know he put our friendship aside… He made his decisions for his work and for our university. That’s his choice. I may not agree, but I will never not love my school.

    “Everything good in my life started here. It’s not a shadow at Notre Dame, but I came here, I restarted my basketball career and my life took off.”

    Green Bay, a Horizon League school with one NCAA Tournament appearance this century, gave Gottlieb the opportunity to live two lives. With one foot in coaching and the other in radio.

    Gottlieb could say he has two feet in both. And he has such an infectious energy that you start to believe him. Heck, maybe him can do this.

    “If I were to walk you through my day,” Gottlieb said, “you’d say, ‘Oh, OK, that makes sense.'”

    I asked Gottlieb to do just that.

    “Today?” he asked.

    Yes.

    “Today was a long day,” he said.

    Gottlieb didn’t sleep well on Sunday night, but he doesn’t sleep much anyway. He woke up at 4:30 am, did some work and watched the tape. At 7 a.m., Gottlieb snuck out of his room, which he shared with his 15-year-old son Hayes. Gottlieb ate breakfast with his coaches. They talked about what they wanted to accomplish later that morning during the team’s shootaround.

    More: Big 12 basketball rankings for the 2024-25 season, predicted by USA TODAY Sports Network

    Gottlieb went out for coffee and came back for an interview for a docuseries he is working on.

    Then it was time for a shootout.

    “Then I took my son to get some lunch and he needed some underwear because he’s 15.”

    A 15-year-old who forgot to check everything off his packing list. Gottlieb put his son on national radio.

    Gottlieb went back to the hotel, packed up and drove to Eskimo Joe’s, where he recorded his podcast and radio show from about 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

    From there, Gottlieb went to his team’s pregame meal, after which Gottlieb held a scouting session and a coaches meeting.

    “And then I didn’t get anything for about an hour and a half,” Gottlieb said. “I probably close my eyes for half an hour, then write down some notes, go to the gym and get ready to coach a game.”

    Just before 8 p.m., Gottlieb received a rousing ovation from the home crowd.

    The buzzer sounded on his coaching debut at 10:08 p.m. Gottlieb and Green Bay lost to Lutz’s Cowboys 89-76.

    Gottlieb’s three children, his son and two daughters – twins Harper and Grace, both of whom attend OSU – lined the wall of the press room as Gottlieb held his post-game news conference.

    “I just want to thank Coach Lutz for playing this game,” Gottlieb said. “I made no secret of it: I wanted this game for countless reasons, but mainly for those three people.”

    Gottlieb looked at his children.

    “I want my children to be proud of me.”

    Twelve minutes later, Gottlieb mingled with old friends in the lobby of the Gallagher-Iba Arena.

    The fact that he was still standing was an achievement in itself.

    “I’m probably going to be super tired tomorrow, I’m not going to lie to you,” Gottlieb said, “but right now I’m pretty good.”

    Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Do you have a story idea for Joe? Email him [email protected]. Please support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoma journalists by making a digital subscription today at Subscribe.oklahoman.com.

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