Last Nov. 10, three UCLA Bruins were caught shoplifting sunglasses during the basketball team’s trip to China. The criticism of those kids came hard and fast, always underscored by a seemingly simple question: How could they be so stupid?
I knew, however, that the question was not so simple. That’s because 22 years ago, I did something stupid. And I knew exactly what those kids were feeling, because I will never forget how I felt when I got that fateful phone call exposing what I had done for all the world to see.
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It was June 1996. I was back home in Orange, Calif., having recently completed a freshman season at Notre Dame that, all things considered, had gone pretty darn well. I had started all but four games and led the team in assists, steals and minutes. Still, for a variety of reasons, I was thinking about a transfer. Apparently word got out because my coach, John MacLeod, called to report he had heard rumors I might want to leave. I told him I wasn’t sure yet, but yes, I was thinking about it. He was understanding but said I needed to let him know one way or another in a week so he could recruit another point guard if I was not coming back.
Two days later, Coach MacLeod called again. This time, he was bearing bad news. “Dougie, I don’t know if it’s just innuendo,” he said. “But I am hearing some accusations about you using other students’ credit cards.”
My heart sank. I had been caught.
Coach Mac never asked if it was true, but I had to tell my father it was. Facing him was brutal. Bob Gottlieb was a basketball lifer who spent seven years as a Division I head coach, 19 years as an assistant and had become a prominent AAU coach who ran a basketball academy and a recruiting placement service. Even though I was 20, I feared his reaction. My dad was old-school, and he had a temper. I was his pride and joy, but I got into trouble a lot when I was a kid. He smacked me around when I deserved it. But he didn’t raise a hand when I told him. He simply said, “You are going to have to fix this.”
After considering a transfer, I now wanted to return to Notre Dame and make things right. Over the next week I called all three kids I had stolen from. I apologized profusely and offered to pay them back. I also begged them not to report what I had done to the school’s honor code committee. I had appeared before the committee three months before on charges of plagiarism. I got off with a slap on the wrist, but I knew this would be grounds for expulsion. Two of the students I spoke with agreed not to report me. The third did not.
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A few days later, Coach MacLeod called again. “Dougie, I have some tough news,” he said. “We love you, we know this is not who you are, but this is just not something I can fix. So we are going to say you are transferring because you are homesick, and that we wish you the best.”
I hung up the phone and looked around my bedroom, the 9-by-12 foot space where I nurtured all of my dreams of becoming a great basketball player, someone who could make his family proud. There were four posters on the walls. Michael Jordan’s “Wings.” A Larry Bird poster that read, “It makes me sick when I see a guy just watch it go out of bounds.” The “Best on Earth, Best on Mars” poster by Nike, featuring Jordan and Spike Lee posing as Mars Blackmon. And a John Stockton poster. I looked at all of the trophies, the scholar-athlete awards, the pictures from the day I signed with Notre Dame, the boxes of letters from schools who recruited me.
It dawned on me that this could mean the end of my basketball career, that no one would ever want me to play for them. All those dreams, all those plans, gone in an instant. Worst of all, there was no one to blame. I had done this to myself, all by myself. I was tormented by that one overriding question: How could I be so stupid?
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The last thing I want is to do is sound like I’m making excuses. The hard truth is, there are none. But over the years, I’ve thought about why I made those bad decisions. My understanding has helped me process what I did, forgive myself and eventually move on, even if there are a lot of folks who won’t let me.
I was the ultimate gym rat growing up. As a senior at Tustin High School, I was named the Player of the Year by the Orange County Register. I was recruited by a lot of big-time schools, including UCLA, Michigan State, Florida and UConn. Coach MacLeod reached out as well, but I wasn’t really interested in playing for Notre Dame. However, I was a huge college football fan, so I told him I wanted to see the campus and go to a game.
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I visited on a beautiful September weekend. The campus was amazing. Michigan beat Notre Dame on a last-second field goal, and students were crying as they left the stadium. I was blown away by their passion. I also bonded with MacLeod’s assistant, Fran McCaffrey, who is now the coach at Iowa. When MacLeod called and told me that Notre Dame was joining the Big East, I was sold. I was a Jewish point guard from California headed to the ultimate Catholic school to play point guard in the Big East. Ain’t that America!
When I arrived in South Bend in August 1995, I thought I had found nirvana. Then October came, and the weather turned. I was a California kid who grew up 20 minutes from the beach. I owned exactly one pair of jeans. (Guess jeans, of course.) My daily attire consisted of basketball shorts, flip flops and a sweatshirt I shed at 10 a.m. I had never experienced cold like that. The lack of sun got to me. I think I needed Vitamin D.
Practice started on Oct. 15. I had arrived at 160 pounds and bulked up as fast as I could to about 177, thanks to Creatine, which was all the rage. The added muscle made me look like a beast, but it hurt my shooting. I was not physically ready. I got my ass kicked often in practice. Like most freshman, I felt lost.
Within three weeks, I was a mess. I wasn’t comfortable running MacLeod’s halfcourt motion offense. I felt like I couldn’t make a play. Plus, I lacked a personal connection with my coach. Looking back, I would guess that I was clinically depressed. I walked into McCaffrey’s office, and tears came pouring out. I said all the stupid things you say when you lose your mind. I wanted to go home. I missed my dog. I hated the offense. It was cold. I was failing at least three courses. I’ll never play, I can’t shoot, I’m slow. Why did you recruit me?
Fran heard me out, gave me a hug and told me everything would be different when the games started. And with that he sent me back to my dormitory, Dillon Hall.
In many ways, McCaffrey was right, but even when I played well, my depression came and went. I loved my teammates, but I had never been on a losing team. When the season ended, I got to enjoy campus life a little. I was the PA announcer for a student basketball tournament. I dated around after a girl I was seeing dumped me. I felt my high school girlfriend pulling away. I felt alone.
I was not myself. Rather, my makeup was a volatile mixture of entitlement, depression and a need for attention. I shaved my head. I wasn’t a big drinker, but I drank heavily at some weekend dorm parties and a bar called The Backer. My bike was stolen. Instead of feeling like an idiot for not locking it up, I harbored anger that other people were doing me wrong, even though I was too hammered to remember exactly where I had left the bike.
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One night I was writing a paper on a computer that belonged to a guy in my dorm. No one was around. I was looking for a calculator, and when I opened the drawer I saw a credit card. I didn’t have one of my own. I looked at it, thought about it, closed the drawer. The next night I returned to use the computer again. This time I went for it. I didn’t have a plan. I just thought I’d use it and put it back. Who was going to know?
I went to the mall and bought a pair of size 12 Nike “Pippen’s.” They were dope. Here I was, with hundreds of free sneakers in my closet, and it wasn’t enough. The next night, I worked on the computer again and put the card back. Simple – or so I thought.
Given a second chance at Oklahoma State, I led the country in assists as a junior and, most important, I met my future wife. (photo by Al Bello/AllSport/Getty Images)About a week went by, and I was working on another computer. This time I spotted a wallet. I took the first card I found, bought some Tommy Hilfiger shirts and returned the card the next day.
One week later, same deal, different dorm room. It was easy. At that time it seemed that everyone had rope chains and woven gold bracelets, so I bought one. I thought it looked cool with the Hilfiger shirts. All in all, I spent about $900 for shoes, shirts and a bracelet. I put the credit card back, but later I stole a gas card that I did not return.
I wasn’t done. During the last week of school, I returned my textbooks to the campus bookstore and was paid cash for them. Later that week, I was sitting in a study lounge and spotted some books that didn’t belong to me. I took them to the store and got money for them as well. This happened about five times over the course of a week. I was living a total lie. I had new gear, a flashy bracelet, new kicks, and now I had a couple hundred bucks in my pocket. The school year ended, and I was ready to head home. I thought no one would ever know.
As I look back, I am appalled at my behavior. Why did I do it? I can blame depression or whatever else was bothering me about Notre Dame, but here’s the real reason: I thought I could get away with it. I felt invincible. I had cheated on tests and been caught a few times, but I was always let off the hook. Besides, I rationalized that I was stealing from kids who had rich parents. I never stole from my roommate, partly because I knew his family didn’t have a lot of money. I also never stole from my teammates. All of that just rationalized my selfish behavior. None of it makes what I did OK. I was a thief. Period.
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Even though I was devastated at the way my Notre Dame career came to an end, I was grateful that Coach McLeod offered to cover for me. In August, the student newspaper published a story about my departure under the headline, “Why?” My explanation for leaving was that I was homesick.
The students I stole from were not pleased, so they reached out to the local NBC television station and outed me. It became a big story nationally. Major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, ESPN and Sports Illustrated followed up with reports of their own.
The agreement with the school was that no charges would be filed, but after it became public, they had no choice. I had to go back to South Bend for a hearing. It is the only time I have been to Notre Dame since I left. I pleaded guilty to a Class C misdemeanor. I had to pay a $500 fine, restitution for the items I stole (2½ times the purchase price), which amounted to about $2,500, plus another $5,000 in court and legal fees. I also had to agree to see a therapist back home in California. That turned out to be a great thing for me.
I enrolled at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. My first high school coach, Tom McCluskey, was the coach. He let me practice with the team — I was an assistant coach during games — but I didn’t play in games because I didn’t want to lose a year of eligibility. The athletes at GWC tended to sit together outside the food court. I will never forget the stares I got when I walked by them the day the story broke. I felt like a loser. The only comparable feeling was the day I went back to South Bend for my court hearing and got fingerprinted at the county jail.
As I explored my options, I got excited about the prospect of playing for Georgia Tech. Bobby Cremins wanted me, and his program was known for churning out great point guards — Mark Price, Kenny Anderson and Stephon Marbury. I thought it was all but done until Cremins called and said he was getting pushback from his administration because of what I had done at Notre Dame. He pulled the offer. I was crushed.
Fortunately, I had an amazing opportunity to play for another coaching legend, Eddie Sutton, at Oklahoma State. When I got to campus in the fall of 1997, I was relieved to discover that barely anyone outside of the coaches knew about what I had done at Notre Dame. It was a fresh start. I had a terrific career in Stillwater. As everyone knows, I was not a good shooter. (OK, I was a terrible shooter: For my career I shot 37 percent from the floor, 24 percent from 3-point range and 46 percent from the line.) But in my junior year I led the nation in assists, at 8.5 per game, and I was second in the country the next year with an 8.6 average. OSU went 17-15 in each of the two years before I got there. During my three years in Stillwater, we went to the NCAA Tournament three times, and in my senior year we lost in the Elite Eight. I tried to enter a game against Kansas with my shorts on backwards. That’s another boneheaded mistake I will never live down.
Most important, I met my wife, Angie, at Oklahoma State. Today we live in southern California and have three amazing children: twins Harper and Grace, 11; and Hayes, who’s 8. A few years ago, Hayes came home from school and told me that one of his friends had looked me up on the Internet and learned that I had gotten kicked out of Notre Dame. Hayes told him it wasn’t true because he didn’t even know I had been at Notre Dame. I had to tell him that yes, it is true. He asked me what happened. “I took somebody’s stuff without asking,” I said. “So remember, if you’re ever going to take someone’s stuff, make sure you ask first. You have to have permission.”
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“Or you will go to the principal’s office?” Hayes asked.
“Worse,” I replied.
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I live a pretty public life. I host a nationally syndicated radio show, I’m on various TV shows and I call college basketball games on radio and television. I am also active on social media. Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t send me a tweet or a message calling me a credit card thief.
I’d be lying if I said I loved it. I did a lot of stuff before, and I’ve done a lot of stuff since. I don’t understand how some people can live so far in the past, especially when it’s not their past. It’s been 22 years. Whatever the statute of limitations is on college-age stupidity, I believe I have exceeded it. But I understand there are many people who will never let me forget. That’s reality.
Life is good again, and I’ve tried to use the mistakes I made as a teaching moment for my children. (photo by Heidi Walter)On the other hand, going through this has made me a better person, a better dad. I can tell my kids from experience that it’s important to know right from wrong, that if you do the wrong thing, you’re probably going to get caught, and there’s a good chance that because of social media it will follow you forever.
I would also like to use what happened to teach my children the value of persistence. I am very proud of what I’ve accomplished as a broadcaster despite all of this. I look at my job the same way I do my playing career. Think about it – I could not shoot. How much better did I have to be as a defender, a passer and a leader to play at the level I did? How good do I have to be at hosting a radio show or calling a basketball game to have the career I’ve had despite being kicked out of Notre Dame? Not to mention that if that hadn’t happened, I never would have ended up at Oklahoma State and met Angie. I’ve never liked “things happen for a reason” statements, especially when the reason was my own doing, but I truly believe I was meant to be a Cowboy. Stillwater spoke to me, and it changed me in so many good ways. I tell people all the time: I was born in Milwaukee and raised in Orange County, but I grew up in Stillwater, Okla.
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I still have some guilt. Three years after I left Notre Dame, Coach MacLeod was fired. I have to live knowing that maybe that wouldn’t have happened if not for what I did. Mostly, I hate what I did to my parents’ name. I think that’s why I worked so hard to build my career as a broadcaster. I wanted to make them proud. My dad died of cancer in 2014. He would have been 78 on Jan. 20. He came from a generation where you didn’t talk about your feelings. I don’t remember ever talking with him about all of this once we got past the original incident. We didn’t talk about a lot of stuff, actually. I regret that. But mostly, I regret he was associated with my actions, which were counter to everything he ever taught me.
So if I could talk to those UCLA kids who got caught shoplifting in China, I would say this: Do the right thing, bide your time and try to leave what happened behind. There’s no point trying to forget, because the world will never let you. But hopefully, your mistake will change you for the better, just as mine did.
More than two decades later, I have kept just one item from those trips to the mall – the gold bracelet. It resides in the top drawer of my nightstand, next to my bed. Angie has never asked me about its meaning. I have only worn it once, when I covered the 2013 Final Four for CBS. As I sat on that set, I could look down at the bracelet and remind myself of how far I had come, and how much I had overcome. And if you think it’s wrong that I kept something that I didn’t pay for, I respectfully disagree. Remember, I had to give the money back at 2½ times the original price. Then there were the other costs: my scholarship, my career, my reputation, the diminished respect of my teammates, friends and family.
So yeah, I paid for that bracelet. I’m still paying for it.
(Top photo by Heidi Walter)
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