What They're Saying: Read All About New Ohio State Coach Chris Holtmann

By Tim Shoemaker on June 9, 2017 at 12:46 pm
New Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann
Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
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Welcome to a new era of Ohio State baskeball.

Chris Holtmann was officially announced Friday as the 14th head coach in program history. Holtmann replaces Thad Matta, who was let go Monday after 13 successful seasons leading the Buckeyes.

Who, exactly, is Chris Holtmann, though? Well, we did some research and wrote an introductory piece, which you can read here. But until Holtmann speaks publicly for the first time about his new gig — his first news conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at Value City Arena — we figured the best way to introduce the next Ohio State head coach would be through the work of others who covered him along his journey to Columbus.

Below, we've compiled some longer, feature-type stories other writers constructed on Holtmann over the last couple of years.

The first comes from Nicole Auerbach of USA TODAY, who profiled Holtmann in 2014. Holtmann had a head coaching gig at Gardner-Webb, but opted to leave it to take an assistant coaching job at Butler. An unusual decision, for sure, but one that has since paid off in a big way. 

"I had pulled out of another head coaching job a couple of weeks earlier and said, 'I'm set, I'm not going to leave Gardner-Webb,' " Holtmann says. "It was a massive rebuilding situation. We were kind of able to get it turned quicker than I thought, but I wanted to see that thing through with our best team coming back. But Butler's Butler. It was the hardest professional decision of my life. … You really invest in a place."

The place invests in you, too, which is why Gardner-Webb athletic director Chuck Burch remains close to Holtmann to this day. That's also why there were those five minutes of choked-up silence.

"That illustrated what a difficult decision that was," Burch says. "I know for him to leave them, it was a hard thing to do."

Holtmann felt it was also the right thing to do, at least in terms of career advancement. He wanted to be a head coach in a power conference someday. He viewed an assistant coaching position within the Big East as the pathway to that.

He just didn't know how quickly that opportunity would come.

Butler is somewhat of a hotbed for young, up-and-coming coaches. From Matta to Brad Stevens to Holtmann, it's become somewhat of a stepping stone position — and a highly-regarded one — to land a big-time job.

Greg Doyel, a fantastic columnist for the Indianapolis Star, wrote a piece on how he probably knew this day — Holtmann leaving for a bigger gig — would come but how he didn't want it to.

Someone else wrote those rules. So someone else can follow them. Me, I’m going to tell you exactly how it is. So here it is: I want Chris Holtmann to retire at Butler. He’s about my age — OK, the 45-year-old whippersnapper is a year younger — and this is what I’ve told him, time and time again:

Let’s retire together. Twenty or so years from now. Right here in Indianapolis.

Is it absurd to put my career in the same sentence as his? Of course it is. He’s one of the best basketball coaches in the country, the freshly minted Big East Basketball Coach of the Year. I’m just writing about him. But that’s how I feel: Let’s stay here 20 years and retire, Chris.

Needless to say, I’m going to be very, very unhappy if — when? — Chris Holtmann leaves Butler.

If you were unfamiliar with the tragedies that hit the Butler basketball program within the last year, it's a very sad story. Two former players passed, as did the eight-month-old son of a staff member in a relatively short period of time. 

Through it all, though, Holtmann led his team, and former ESPN.com writer Dana O'Neil wrote a tremendous piece in 2016 that described, exactly, how he was able to do just that.

"It's been really difficult,'' Holtmann told ESPN.com on Wednesday. "We've all tried to handle the human element of all this as best we can and be as real as we can. The guys have done an incredible job, fighting to figure this thing out in the Big East, but it's been incredibly hard.''

Butler, once ranked as high as No. 9, has lost three of six since Smith's passing and is now 15-7 overall and 4-6 in the Big East.

Holtmann, who has shepherded the Bulldogs through the tumultuous coaching change a year ago and now the deaths of both Smith and Emerson "Little Em" Kampen IV, said he is considering bringing in grief counselors for his players and perhaps even for himself.

"I've cried more in the last month, month and a half than, I have in the last five years,'' he said. "I have seen some really sad and awful stuff happen to some really good people.''

Those were just three of our favorite stories about Ohio State's next head coach. Of course, there are more, and a few others are listed below.

Additional Holtmann stories:

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