Why did Green Bay hire Doug Gottlieb? Media personality's Oklahoma State career, radio show draw program's interest

Green Bay was one of the few college basketball programs in the country that didn't have a head coach. That changed Tuesday when the Phoenix made an unconventional hire, tabbing media personality Doug Gottlieb to become their fourth coach in the past three seasons.

Gottlieb enjoyed a solid college career at Oklahoma State from 1997-2000. He played professionally, mostly overseas, before eventually becoming a sports commentator in the early 2000s. He rose to prominence and is now one of the most popular radio hosts in the country.

Green Bay isn't making Gottlieb trade in his microphone for a whistle. The Phoenix is letting him operate in an atypical role as the team's coach while keeping his radio hosting duties.

All the stranger, Gottlieb doesn't have much high-end coaching experience. That will create plenty of intrigue around his time in Green Bay, which was the university's ultimate goal.

Here's what to know about Gottlieb as he looks to become an effective college basketball coach.

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Why did Green Bay hire Doug Gottlieb?

Green Bay hasn't fully explained its decision to hire Gottlieb, but the Phoenix expressed an interest in Gottlieb last year before hiring Sundance Wicks for its coaching job. When Wicks left to take the Wyoming job during the offseason, Gottlieb re-emerged as a candidate for the job this cycle.

Gottlieb previously expressed an interest in coaching despite his lack of experience. He has connections to Wisconsin — he's a Milwaukee native and his father coached at Milwaukee for five seasons from 1975-80 — so that made it easy to sell him on the Green Bay job.

Ultimately, it appears that Gottlieb's goals aligned with Green Bay's. Gottlieb wanted to get into coaching, and the Phoenix were searching for some national exposure for their team, as well as a potential long-term coaching fit.

Mission accomplished for both parties.

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Doug Gottlieb contract

Green Bay signed Gottlieb to a five-year contract, per CBS Sports' Matt Norlander. The exact terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

Doug Gottlieb coaching experience

Gottlieb doesn't have much coaching experience to rely on as he becomes a college head coach. He worked with Team USA at the Maccabiah Games in 2009 and 2017, but that's about it.

Granted, Gottlieb played Div. I college basketball at Notre Dame (before a credit card scandal ended his time with the program) and Oklahoma State. He can draw on his experiences there, as well as the ones he shared playing in lower-level professional leagues in the United States, Russia, Israel, and France from 2000-03.

But this will mark Gottlieb's first time running the show in full, so it will be interesting to see how he fares when thrown into the fire.

Will Doug Gottlieb continue hosting his radio show?

Surprisingly, it appears that Gottlieb will continue hosting his radio show despite becoming Green Bay's head coach, as Scott Venci of the Green Bay Press-Gazette reports.

It is believed Gottlieb will be able to keep doing his radio show during the week while coaching at UWGB, providing a rather unusual dynamic but one that will give the program some national exposure.

If Green Bay's main goal is to get national exposure, allowing Gottlieb to keep his radio job makes sense. Still, it's worth wondering how he will have time to attend to both jobs without being stretched too thin.

Even so, Green Bay athletic director Josh Moon doesn't seem too worried about the arrangement, as he told CBS Sports' Matt Norlander after the hire was reported.

"What he's doing now is a two-hour radio show," Moon said. "Balancing that is no different than what other folks have dabbled in this area. This is different — I'm not saying it's the same — but the commitment for that in terms of how many hours in the day, Doug can balance that with where he's at in his career. His challenge is going to be: how do you balance the takes, the opinions and things that drive that process? That's what he's going to have to figure out."

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Doug Gottlieb stats

Gottlieb played 124 games during his college basketball career with the Fighting Irish and Cowboys. The 6-1 point guard averaged 5.1 points, 2.3 rebounds, 7.6 assists, and 1.4 steals per game during his career with the two schools. He twice led the nation in assists and still ranks 10th all-time in that category.

Below is a look at his year-by-year, per-game stats at the Div. I level.

Gottlieb also spent a season at junior college from 1996-97. He served as a redshirt player/coach there after his transfer from Notre Dame, which occurred after he stole a classmate's credit card and used it to make multiple purchases.