Fox Sports ding-dong Doug Gottlieb has experienced ongoing humiliation in his first year as the head coach of the Green Bay Phoenix, which is rough for him but great for everyone else. The 2-11 team's season in the Horizon League has been dismal, though it hit a notable new low for Gottlieb this week.
On Wednesday morning, the Phoenix lost their eighth straight game, dropping a home game to Division II Michigan Tech with a final score of 72-70. Every part of that is embarrassing, especially because a few days prior, Gottlieb complained in a post-game press conference about the upcoming Michigan Tech game and how little his team could learn from what would presumably be a victory. "Part of the reason I wanna play better teams is—it's two degrees outside, snowing, and I don't like the idea of Nobody U coming in here," he said. "I always thought, 'What do we learn playing a game where we win by 20?'"
The good news is that the Phoenix's two-point defeat can be instructive. "Every game on our schedule is a game that we can lose," Gottlieb said, correctly.
As if losing to a team you dismissed wasn't embarrassing enough, Gottlieb's team did so days after he got into an online spat with ESPN's semiautonomous NFL reporter Adam Schefter. Gottlieb was correct when he took a shot at Schefter for credulously passing along Sacramento State's "$50 million NIL fund" to court Michael Vick as head coach of the football team. Schefter's report was embarrassing, as it presented NIL committments—pending a move from the FCS to FBS—as real numbers. But Gottlieb forgot the first rule of talking shit online: You are in danger of losing any argument if the other person can credibly call "Scoreboard!" In response, Schefter posted a screenshot of the Horizon League standings, telling him, "Less time on social media and more time in the gym."
The time split between media and the gym is baked into Gottlieb's weird five-year contract with UWGB. He still hosts his Fox Sports radio show while steering his team into various obstacles and stepping on rakes, and his contract has language about a "conflict management plan" between his two gigs. Gottlieb's yapping on the radio "may not interfere with (his) duties as head basketball coach," and the school reserves the right to tell him if he's spending too much time being a dumbass in public. "It wasn't that difficult," athletic director Josh Moon said. "You just have to communicate on the front end of what his hours look like and, again, you are not going to find a guy who works more during the day in terms of everything he is doing. That was really not a concern at all, his radio show. It was fairly easy to do. He has a plan in place to make sure he is following through."
It's great to hear that Gottlieb has his work-work-life balance settled. Now he just needs to learn how to coach college basketball.
