If it wasn’t for her torn ACL, Lindsay Gottlieb wouldn’t have viewed the game differently. It was her senior year in high school when she had this epiphany. Before that, she was all about making a career as an athlete. “Whatever sports season it was, I wanted to play. I pretty much just wanted to be playing ball all the time.” That’s how driven she was toward basketball.

As a result, she started playing organized basketball when she was only in fourth grade, and by the time she reached Scarsdale High School, all she dreamt of was her college basketball career. However, things turned out well for Gottlieb as she followed her instinct of becoming a basketball coach. Let’s take a look at her journey through the years.

Lindsay Gottlieb’s starts as Assistant Coach

The seeds of Gottlieb’s coaching career were sown at the time she was a senior in high school, sitting on the sidelines due to an ACL tear. Her then coach, gave her a t-shirt that had ‘coach’ written on it and as she spent her time on the bench throughout the season, her interest peaked. But it was only after her freshman year in college, following her mother’s demise, that Gottlieb flew to Australia and returned determined to pursue coaching as a career.

“I knew that it was the perfect thing for me because it combined kind of my nerdiness and love of the X’s and O’s with the ability to impact 18- to 22-year-olds in a really significant way. To be able to do what I love, basketball, and have this intense impact on people, I felt that was it,” Gottlieb reasoned via Heavy.com.

As a result, in her senior year of college, Gottlieb was working with the coaching staff. Having such experience, she was hired as an assistant coach by Syracuse University’s head coach Marianna Freeman in 1999. Then two years later, in 2001, she moved to the University of New Hampshire and worked under Sue Johnson. It was then followed by Joanne Boyle hiring her for an AC position once again at the University of Richmond.

For three years, she worked at Richmond and contributed to the Spiders’ 23 wins that earned their first NCAA Tournament berth in 14 years.

Young and driven at 24 years old, Gottlieb took upon these opportunities and gained that needed exposure and experience. Her path started to take its shape in 2005 when Boyle was hired for a head coaching position at the University of California. Not having to serve the position without Gottlieb, Boyle brought her to Berkley as her top assistant.

On paper, she was involved in recruiting and scouting alongside being the team’s academic liaison. However, she was also working with and developing the Bears’ freshman post players Ashley Walker and Devanai Hampton. Gottlieb’s impact was visible on those players after both of them made it to the WNBA.

Then it was only in 2007, after the second-consecutive year of NCAA Tournament appearance, that Gottlieb was promoted to the position of Associate Head Coach. The next year, six years after starting out as an assistant coach, Gottlieb was finally offered the role of head coach at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

It was the beginning of a new era for Gottlieb

And she didn’t take it slow, rather she led the Gauchos straight into a 15-1 record in the Big West Conference and a 22-10 overall record. Acing the regular season, the team won the conference tournament as well. However, they were knocked down by Stanford in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

The next season, the tables took a 180-degree turn as Gottlieb put out a disappointing 15-17 record and couldn’t advance to the post-season play. But she bounced back in the 2010-11 season with a 19-12 record and went on to win the regular season championship with a 12-4 overall record. During her three years at Santa Barbara, Gottlieb had 56 wins and 39 losses out of a total of 95 games.

Then she came back to the California Golden Bears as her mentor Joanne Boyle moved on to a head coaching position at the University of Virginia. In April 2011, Gottlieb was back in Berkeley as the Bears’ ninth head coach. Plus it was a different conference for Gottlieb, but given her versatility and unique approach, she was able to adapt accordingly.

During her tenure of 8 years through 2019, she led the Bears to the NCAA Tournament in every season expect 2015-16. In the 2012-13 season, Gottlieb’s guidance took California to a regular season championship, the NCAA Tournament, and the Final Four. Out of 268 games she coached the Bears, Gottlieb had 179 wins and 89 losses.

That opened a new path for the first Gauchos coach to win 20 games in her first season.

Challenging herself is the way ahead for the coach

In 2019, Lindsey Gottlieb became the first NCAA women’s head coach to be hired by an NBA Team, i.e. the Cleveland Cavaliers for the position of an assistant coach. “I went to the NBA to challenge myself at the highest levels of the game of basketball and was fully invested in that journey,” said Gottlieb in a press release at the time.

Although it was a 4-year deal with the Cavs, Gottlieb was named the head coach of the USC Trojans women’s basketball team in 2021 only. As the opportunity knocked on Lindsay Gottlieb’s door, she embraced it with her arms wide open.“It is an honor and a thrill to become the women’s basketball coach at USC. I am inspired by the incredible history of this program and excited about the opportunity to do special things with the young women I will have the privilege to coach,” Gottlieb exclaimed.

In May 2021, she took upon the helm at USC and has been involved in making it the ‘best and coolest’ women’s basketball brand, equivalent to the Yankees in MLB, as USC’s general manager Amy Broadhead puts it.

After having been with the Women of Troy for three seasons, Lindsay Gottlieb has amassed 62 wins and 32 losses. This brings us to her coaching record of 297 wins and 160 losses, a .650 win-loss percentage, placing her in the top 100 NCAA women’s basketball coaches.