How DePaul and DeWayne Peevy landed Chris Holtmann as its head basketball coach

CHICAGO, Ill. - From the beginning of DePaul’s coaching search in January, DePaul director of athletics DeWayne Peevy had an idea of what he wanted in the Blue Demons’ next head coach.

He wanted NCAA Tournament experience. The main goal, after all, was to make the NCAA Tournament.

That’s why Chris Holtmann, a Coach of the Year winner in the Big South, Big East and Big Ten who has been a part of eight tourney teams, was on Peevy’s list from the start.

From there, it was a matter of trying to get Holtmann. 

"I love to coach and love to work," Holtmann said. "I just felt like, hey, to be able to rebuild this and some ways from the ground up … in today's climate, it's going to take some time, but to be able to do that was probably a deciding factor."

Peevy wanted to make it clear that he always had his eye on Chris Holtmann.

As an experienced coach who was transitioning to a new athletic director in Ross Bjork at Ohio State, Peevy wanted to make a run at Holtmann, who has plenty of Big East experience and has made eight NCAA Tournaments.

Ohio State fired Holtmann in February, changing the conversation entirely.

Peevy said he told Holtmann’s agent he was still very interested in having Holtmann coach DePaul, no matter the circumstances. 

Originally, Peevy was pitching comfort. He wanted to give Holtmann the option of picking the athletic director he wanted to coach for as Ohio State AD Gene Smith was departing and Texas A&M AD Ross Bjork was incoming. He wanted to pitch DePaul as a place where he could settle his family into, such as choosing where he wanted his daughter to attend high school.

Peevy wanted to convince Holtmann DePaul was the comfortable place for the 52-year-old coach. Instead, he found himself shifting to convince Holtmann to keep coaching.

"He's got an option where he didn't even have to coach," Peevy said. "That was probably what I felt like I was working against us the most because there were not a lot of jobs open while we were out there."

In the end, courting Holtmann first worked. That could only happen because Holtmann was fired.

One thing that could have prevented Holtmann from taking the DePaul job was a potential buyout. According to the Columbus Dispatch, written in Holtmann’s contract was that he would be owed his full remaining salary if he were to be fired. Ohio State announced that figure was $12.8 million. 

Had Holtmann left Ohio State for another job before June 30, 2024, he would have owed Ohio State $2 million. Because he was fired, there was no need for that.

"Ohio State just saved me a buyout," Peevy said with a laugh.

It wasn’t going to be a sure thing. Convincing a standing Big Ten coach to leave for a struggling Big East program is not a normal development.

And Holtmann had some requirements, too.

"That's so important to have a place on campus where your guys can get in the gym and work," Holtmann said. "NIL commitment and continued commitment to keep that thing at a competitive level. Not that it needs to be the best in the country, even the best in the Big East, but competitive. The staffing situation I was pretty comfortable with."

That’s where Peevy made the decision to get DePaul’s "house in order" when it came to staffing, NIL and more. That’s an important commitment to make to a program in order to convince someone they’ll have the means to right the ship.

It was a good thing that news about DePaul’s soon-to-be-built, state-of-the-art practice facility, coming on schedule in 2025, was going to be built.

"We weren't getting a high major coach without NIL," Peevy said. "If the practice facility didn't exist and NIL wasn't going to get us back in the top half of the Big East, what you're talking about millions of dollars, we weren't going to have a high-major coach."

That’s where the conversations started. That was a good sign for Peevy.

"That was good for me to know that he cared about the details," Peevy said. "He wanted to go through how do we practice and where do we go and what do we stay the night before? And how does this work? I mean, obviously you're interested if we're having those type of conversations."

Once the interest was established, it was matter of continuing the conversation. Holtmann would call Peevy with questions; Peevy would call Holtmann to check in. Peevy said Holtmann was worried he was bothering Peevy too much with his calls, but Peevy just wanted to keep calling Holtmann to hopefully make it clear how disappointed DePaul would be if Holtmann said no.

That lead to the deal. DePaul send its offer to Holtmann’s camp on Thursday morning, hours after DePaul’s season ended at Villanova’s hands in heartbreaking fashion.

"We worked on it the wee hours of the night after our game on Wednesday, and I'm in a Big East meeting that morning," Peevy said. "Obviously his agents and attorneys are presenting him with an offer that we are assuming he's probably going accept, but we need Chris. That's the piece that's missing."

The problem seemingly everyone involved was in transit on Thursday morning.

Peevy was heading back to Chicago. Holtmann was going from Florida back to Columbus, Ohio. They both were in the air at the wrong time.

"By the time he lands I'm in the air because I'm leaving with the team. I don't know anything," Peevy said. "I'm in the air headed to Chicago. So when I landed and the word is out, we hadn't even given him the contract but he feels pretty good about it."

From there, it was just getting the signature on the contract.

Peevy popped champagne with his wife. DePaul president Rob Manuel sent him a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

DePaul got its coach.

"That was the first time I had Dom," Peevy said. "It was worth it."