Leroy Lutz was a hard-working, Southwestern Bell lineman for 43 years. Now his son takes that work ethic to the job of reviving OSU basketball.

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STILLWATER — For 43 years, Leroy Lutz put on a pair of boots and a pair of jeans and went to work as a San Antonio telephone lineman.

Climbing poles and crawling under houses. Blistering heat or chilly rain. Sick or well. Forty-three years. And Leroy Lutz’s son never remembers his dad taking a day off.

“My dad went to work,” Steve Lutz said. “When he came back, at the end of the day, there was blood and sweat all over those articles of clothing. I always looked at him and said, ‘Man, how does he do it?’”

The son of that San Antonio lineman stood on Gallagher-Iba Arena’s white maple court on Thursday, having just been introduced as the 21st basketball coach in OSU history. And while Steve Lutz made few promises on how he might revive a moribund program, he did vow this. He’s going to work like Leroy Lutz.

“I approach life the same way,” Steve Lutz said. “You’re going to get 110 percent of me every single day. I promise you that.

“I can’t promise you that we’re going to win every single game, but I can promise you that you’re going to have our best. That means from the top all the way down to the last person on the roster and on the staff. We’re going to give you everything that we have.”

Everything might be what it takes to revive the Cowboys, who in the last 10 years are 71-109 in Big 12 play, with one NCAA Tournament victory and two NCAA Tournament appearances, both Big 12 lows.

Lutz talked about OSU’s championship history and the tales of 13,611 filling Gallagher-Iba and following in the path of legends, but he knows this is a reclamation project. Even in this transfer-mad, rebuild-quickly era, Lutz knows he just signed up for a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-to-work job.

Athletic director Chad Weiberg, who chose Lutz, said he talked to a variety of basketball people about Lutz and came away with common themes.

“Very hard worker, strong relationships with his players, relentless recruiter, very hard worker,” Weiberg said. “And yes, I said that twice on purpose. Great respect from and well-liked by other coaches.”

Lutz comes by his hard work honest.

He still remembers the phone company truck his dad would drive. When Leroy Lutz, who died in 2012 at age 82, drew a Southwestern Bell assignment in their neighborhood, he would drive by for a break, and Steve would come running out.

“His truck would have an Igloo cooler that would have water in it,” Steve Lutz said. “The best water ever. You know, you’re a little kid. Your dad, you hold him in this regard. And he’d stop by the house, ‘Hey man, you want some water?’ And we’d have some water and talk for a few minutes. Then he’d get back to work.

Uptempo basketball isn’t a calling card for OSU, but that could change with new coach Steve Lutz, whose history suggests the Cowboys will play faster than ever before.

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“My dad was a great man.”

Leroy and Patricia Lutz raised six kids — four daughters, two sons — and Steve was the baby of the family. Steve Lutz was a solid basketball player at San Antonio’s East Central High School; he played one year at Ranger Junior College, then three years at Texas Lutheran University, 35 miles from San Antonio in Seguin, Texas.

In 1995, Lutz became a graduate assistant at Incarnate Word in San Antone.

Incarnate Word’s other grad assistant was Chris Beard, who went on to become a head coach at Texas Tech and Texas. Beard drew the plum GA spot, which paid $3,600 a year and free tuition. The other GA, Lutz, got $2,000 and no tuition waiver.

Lutz took home $186.14 a month. He worked nights and weekends at a San Antonio restaurant/bar to make ends meet.

“Once I got into college coaching, I knew that this was what I was meant to be … I knew that this was my passion,” Lutz said.

Not even the mundane duties turned him off. His first day on the job, Lutz walked in with his backpack and khaki shorts, and Incarnate Word head coach Danny Kaspar appeared and said, “Hey, you guys come with me.”

So Beard, now the coach at Ole Miss, and Lutz followed Kaspar to the locker room, where a five-gallon bucket of paint sat besides some rollers and paintbrushes. Kaspar told them he’d return at lunchtime, when it was time to eat.

Lutz rolled up his sleeves and started painting.

“That’s the way it started, and I’ve tried to keep that same mentality in everything that I do from that day till today,” Lutz said.

Lutz said that on road trips, he’ll grab the bags from the cargo of buses or planes.

“We’re all in this together, and none of us can think we’re better than one another,” Lutz said. “When we’re together and we’re all on the same page, guys, there’s no telling what we can accomplish together. I promise you that.”

With the patience of a 43-year Southwestern Bell lineman, Lutz slowly worked his way through the ranks. Kansas’ Garden City Community College, Stephen F. Austin, Southern Methodist, Creighton and Purdue. Lutz never got in a hurry.

At age 48, Lutz finally became a head coach, first at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, then at Western Kentucky. Three years as a head coach, three NCAA Tournaments, and on Thursday, Lutz found himself as the guest of honor, in a building named for Henry Iba and on a court named for Eddie Sutton.

About 200 OSU fans dropped by to cheer on and learn more about their new coach. Lutz told them he would put little stock in their suggestions for strategy or lineups. But if someone wants to suggest the Cowboys aren’t giving their all, his antenna goes up.

“If we don’t play hard for you, you can look me in the eye and say, ‘Hey coach, your team needs to play harder,’ and I will rectify that immediately,” Lutz said. “That’s the one thing I can tell you.”

In some ways, Lutz is not filling big shoes. Mike Boynton’s seven-year record was 119-109. 

But Boynton was beloved for his total immersion into OSU and Stillwater. He was the most popular coach on campus, despite a lack of on-court success. 

On March 14, when Weiberg pulled the plug on Boynton’s seven seasons as head coach, the athletic department was a somber place, almost like a funeral, a variety of sources said.

OSU fans will rally around Lutz if he wins. But can Lutz engender the devotion that Boynton sowed?

“Mike Boynton is a good man,” Lutz said. “He’s a good man. And he’s a good basketball coach. Whether or not his success translated to the level that was expected, that’s not for me to decide.

“But everywhere, I’ve been a part of the athletic department, I’ve been part of the community. That’s important to me.

“My (11-year-old) son’s going to be running around Gallagher-Iba all the time, and I’m sure he’s going to wind up in somebody’s practice at some point, and they’re going to kick him out, but that’s just the way I’ve always done it.”

The coach who turns baggage-handler on road trips says he’ll think of himself the same as the cross country coach (Dave Smith) or the equestrian coach (Larry Sanchez) or the wrestling coach (John Smith).

Weiberg said what he sensed about Lutz matched what he was told by those who knew Lutz: Straightforward. Genuine. Real. That Lutz would promote the program but it wouldn’t be about him. It would be about the program, about the team, about the university.

And Weiberg liked Lutz’s story.

“His background and how he was raised, then just his path, I think that says a lot about him,” Weiberg said. “Starting out at the very bottom and just working hard, the whole way up.”

In 1995, the year Steve Lutz’s career began, Leroy Lutz’s career ended. He retired after 43 years at Southwestern Bell.

At a retirement gathering, the ladies from Leroy Lutz’s phone company dispatching unit told Steve Lutz how much they respected his father. In part because he never had a bad day.

“My dad was not a man of big words; his skin would be crawling in front of all these cameras,” Steve Lutz said. “But he treated them with respect every single day. He never yelled at them. He never blew up at them. He did his job.

“I think we’ve lost a little bit of that in today’s society, taking pride in doing your job every single day and doing it to the best of your ability and doing it the right way, treating people the right way.”

Now Leroy Lutz’s son has a new job. A tough job. He’s got some poles to climb and some houses to crawl under. But Steve Lutz also has some Igloos to dispense the best water ever, and the home training of hard work.