Drinks on coach: Holtmann willing to open wallet to lift DePaul

A good coaching staff can adjust to whatever the defense throws at it.

DePaul ran into that situation last month when coach Chris Holtmann drew up a play that was foiled by an unexpected turn of events.

The Blue Demons pulled off an exciting win over Marquette on Jan. 16 and set a record for largest student attendance since the opening of Wintrust Arena.

This was cause for celebration, so Holtmann tweeted out a message to students: A round of beers on him at Kelly's, the popular campus bar on Webster Ave. next to the El tracks. There was one major problem, however.

“We rush to Kelly's to try to prepare them for the onslaught, and Kelly's is actually closed to a private party that evening,” associate athletic director Nina Goodhue said. “We joke about it now. I've lived here 10 years and never seen them close for a private party on a Friday night.”

Too late for a timeout, the DePaul crew quickly shifted plans and told students the scene would shift to Homeslice, a pizza place on the other side of the tracks. More of a restaurant, maybe, but there were pitchers of free beer ready for students who had been at the game.

“Holt ended up talking to individual people there, so that was great,” Goodhue said. “Then we got word that a big group of students had gone to a bar down the road called Hook and Ladder.”

OK, now it was a party. Holtmann ended up jumping on the bar at the new location and announced a round of drinks for DePaul students, which made for excellent social media theater.

A common gripe among college basketball coaches these days is the job entails so much more than coaching basketball. There's NIL and schmoozing boosters that can provide it, transfer portal, etc. Holtmann decided to take all that on, and add fan relations to his duties.

“It's been phenomenal,” the second-year coach said this week. “It's been, in a lot of ways, rewarding. I've loved it. It's what's required, I think, when you're rebuilding a program.”

The free stuff began shortly after Holtmann took the job. At a student orientation event in the fall, he promised free lunch after victories for students who attend the games, a tradition that is still going. Cleveland Cavaliers guard Max Strus, a former DePaul star, got caught up in the generosity and agreed to buy beers for students at the Seton Hall game on Jan. 24.

For the first time in at least a decade, DePaul’s athletic department is sponsoring a bus trip to the game at Marquette on March 1. Holtmann and his wife Lori have pledged to buy both lunch and dinner for anyone who rides the bus.

“He does pay for it, it is his personal card that gets charged for that event,” Goodhue said. “As someone who works in marketing and fan experience, I couldn't ask for a better support team.”

Of course, the key ingredient in all of this is winning. DePaul has endured a long, blue dry spell in men's basketball. Holtmann's team is showing some progress with a 14-12 record heading into Saturday's home game against Providence.

With a decent finish, this group has a chance to reach 20 wins for the first time since the 2006-7 season, when Jerry Wainwright went 20-14. Maybe someday soon, the Blue Demons will end their 21-year NCAA Tournament drought, which is something fans will surely get on board with.

“When I provide lunch, I can't always get down there because it's around practice time,” Holtmann said. “But when I do, I've enjoyed saying, 'Hey, thanks for coming. Did you have fun at the game?' Usually it's, 'Yeah, we had a great time coach.' So, I've really enjoyed that interaction.”

Holtmann grew up near Lexington, Ky., so his love for college hoops began with the Joe B. Hall-coached Kentucky teams. Holtmann could have asked for Sam Bowie's autograph at some point.

But that was also the start of the DePaul glory days, when the Demons played on national television every weekend and were frequently ranked No. 1.

“I was deeply entrenched in Kentucky basketball and the South and the SEC and all of that,” Holtmann said. “As I got older, I started to broaden my landscape of college basketball. Notre Dame-DePaul, those kind of rivalries.”

While he may bleed a different blue, no one can say Holtmann hasn't bought in to turning things around at DePaul.