Lindsay Gottlieb

Lindsay Catherine Gottlieb (born October 2, 1977) is an American basketball coach who is the women's head coach for the USC Trojans of the Pac-12 Conference.

She was previously the head coach of the California Golden Bears women's team before becoming an assistant coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

When Gottlieb returned to Brown for her senior year in 1998–99, she was both a player and a student assistant, working with the coaching staff.

Her teammates voted her the Team Heart and Soul Award in 1999.

That same year, she was also awarded her B.A. in political science.

Because of her experience as a player-coach at Brown, Gottlieb was hired as an assistant by Syracuse University head coach Marianna Freeman, the day after she graduated from college.

In the two years she spent at Syracuse, Gottlieb also earned a master's degree in the philosophy of education.

Then in 2001, she moved to the University of New Hampshire, where she was an assistant under Sue Johnson.

The following year, the 24-year-old Gottlieb was asked by the head coach of the University of Richmond, Joanne Boyle, to be her top assistant.

According to Gottlieb, it took her "about 30 seconds" to accept.

Gottlieb worked under Boyle for three successful seasons at Richmond, 2002–05.

The Spiders had three consecutive seasons with 20 or more wins.

In 2003 and 2004 Richmond played in the WNIT, and in 2005 the Spiders received their first invitation to the NCAA Tournament in 14 years.

In 2005, Boyle was hired as the head coach of the University of California, and she brought Gottlieb with her to Berkeley as her top assistant.

At California, Gottlieb was involved in recruiting and scouting, and was the team's academic liaison.

But she was primarily responsible for working with and developing the Bears' outstanding freshman post players, Ashley Walker and Devanei Hampton.

During Boyle and Gottlieb's first year at California, 2005–06, the Bears had their first winning season in 13 years and received their first NCAA Tournament bid since 1993.

The Bears made the NCAA Tournament each of three years that Gottlieb was an assistant in Berkeley.

Both became All-Americans, and Hampton was the first California player to be named Pac-10 Player of the Year (2006–07), while Walker went on to become the first Golden Bear to be drafted by the WNBA, a first-round pick of the Seattle Storm.

In 2007, Gottlieb was elevated to Associate Head Coach.

On May 15, 2008, Gottlieb was named head coach of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The 30-year-old Gottlieb was just the fourth head coach in UCSB history, and replaced retiring long-time coach, Mark French.

In her first season as a head coach, Gottlieb led the Gauchos to a 15–1 regular season conference record in the Big West Conference, and a 22–10 record overall.

Gottlieb began her head coaching career with the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos where she spent three years and led the team to two regular-season Big West championships in 2009 and 2011, as well as the Big West tournament championship in 2009.

In just her second season at the University of California, Berkeley, Gottlieb led the 2012–13 Golden Bears to their first Final Four in school history, their first Pac-12 Conference championship, and the most wins ever by a Cal women's basketball team (32–4).

Gottlieb was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year by the media, and was one of the four finalists for the Naismith National Coach of the Year.

In her first season at Cal, Gottlieb's Bears had a 25–10 record, making her the first women's basketball coach to win 20 games in her first season at California.

That year, Gottlieb led the Bears to the second round of the NCAA women's basketball tournament.

She earned her 100th career victory on February 3, 2013.

Gottlieb was born in Scarsdale, New York, and is Jewish.

Most of her family members are lawyers, and her father was a New York state judge.

Gottlieb was passionate about sports from an early age.

"Whatever sports season it was, I wanted to play," says Gottlieb.

"I pretty much just wanted to be playing ball all the time."

She started playing organized basketball in the fourth grade and by the time she reached high school was hoping for a college basketball career.

Spending her senior year at Scarsdale High School on the bench with a torn ACL led her to view the game from a different perspective, and to consider coaching.

Gottlieb followed in the tradition of both her parents and attended an Ivy League college, in her case Brown University.

She played basketball her freshman year as a guard for the Brown Bears, but after her mother died during her sophomore year, she decided to spend a year studying abroad in Australia.

It was during that year abroad that she decided to pursue a coaching career seriously.

Gottlieb explained, "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."