By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Two obvious things have to happen for a coaching hire to take place at the collegiate level.

The school has to want the coach and the coach has to want the school.

That’s why Ben McCollum was hired to coach the Iowa men’s basketball team instead of Darian DeVries.

McCollum actually wanted the job, whereas DeVries reportedly had absolutely no interest in coaching the Hawkeyes, even though some described it as DeVries’s dream job simply because he grew up in Aplington, Iowa and because he is the older brother of former Iowa All-America defensive lineman Jared DeVries.

As it turns out, that was just a silly fallacy that some in the media helped to fuel.

DeVries never interviewed for the Iowa job or had any direct conversations with UI officials. He instead was hired as the Indiana head coach, and that’s considered a better job than the Iowa job due mostly to Indiana having more tradition and more resources.

So, it seems that DeVries, who coached this past season at West Virginia, and McCollum, who coached this past season at Drake, both have landed their dream job and both are happy and excited about the future.

While so much of the focus was on Iowa supposedly being Darian DeVries’s dream job, that couldn’t have been any further from the truth.

The truth is Iowa is Ben McCollum’s dream job and has been for quite some time.

He was born in Iowa City in 1981 and then moved to Storm Lake as a young child.

It was in Storm Lake where the 43-year-old McCollum developed a love and passion for the Iowa men’s basketball team, and for its players, most notably Chris Street, the fiery power forward who was killed in an automobile accident in January 1993 midway through his junior season.

McCollum grew up during the Tom Davis coaching era and dreamed of wearing the black and gold.

“To the past players, you’re who I idolized. I mean, that’s who I watched growing up was the past players for the University of Iowa, all the way back from B.J. Armstrong,” McCollum said. “I could rattle off — I’m just like, Wade Lookingbill, Val Barnes, Mon’Ter Glasper. These are just the random names. Acie Earl, obviously Chris Street. So I can just rattle off a bunch of them, and obviously, the ones that just came.

“I always dreamed of playing for the Hawkeyes, and I just wasn’t good enough. So I didn’t get to play for them, but now I get to coach them, and hopefully, bring success here.”

McCollum only lasted for one season as the Drake head coach because he was so successful as Darian DeVries’s successor that Drake couldn’t compete when a school with more prestige and resources came calling.

Iowa gets criticized for its limited NIL resources, but when Iowa offered McCollum a six-year contract that will pay him $3.35 million in the first year, Drake just couldn’t compete, just like it couldn’t compete when West Virginia hired DeVries shortly after the 2023-24 season.

DeVries was Drake’s head coach for six seasons before taking the West Virginia job.

Iowa Athletic Director Beth Goetz said Tuesday without giving specific numbers that Iowa’s NIL resources will be competitive.

Goetz also said that McCollum wouldn’t have taken the job if he had any concerns about NIL resources.

“We certainly talked about what we thought the program needed to be successful,” Goetz said. “And that was certainly a big piece of every conversation about where we sit in the Big Ten and what resources it was going to take, and what our level of commitment was to assure we positioned the program for future success.”

McCollum made it clear in his introductory press conference on Tuesday that he considers it an honor and a privilege to be the Iowa coach.

And while it’s true that every coach pushes that narrative at his or her introductory press conference, McCollum’s words carry more weight because he truly did grow up idolizing the Iowa players and wanting to be a Hawkeye.

They were his team as a kid, and now they’re his team as a head coach, and he couldn’t be happier.

“I’m blessed, man,” McCollum said. “I appreciate everything. I appreciate the people that have taken a risk on me. I’m thankful for that every single day. I’ll make sure to not take this for granted. I’m going to fight for Iowa, and we’re going to get this thing going again.”

McCollum was asked Tuesday what will his sales pitch be to players that are currently in the transfer portal.

“You know, one, it’s the University of Iowa. Like I think it’s a big deal,” McCollum said. “I think it’s pretty cool to be here. I love the campus. I love everything surrounding it. I love the support. I love the fans. I’ve been around it my whole life. So you sell that, number one

“Two, the relationships that we’re going to have with them is a dig deal. So we sell the people. So we’ll sell the people that — my assistants, my staff. We’ll sell anyone that’s in the program at that point.

“And, three, just making sure that they understand we’ve won a lot, and if you want to be infected with some of those winning characteristics that we can bring to the table, this is where you should be. And if you want to go somewhere else for a certain amount of whatever, then go do that. But we’re going to make you better.”

To say that McCollum has won a lot would be an understatement.

He led Drake to a school-record 31 wins this past season, and to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1971.

He also won four national titles in 15 seasons as the head coach for Division II Northwest Missouri State prior to coming to Drake, where he replaced Darian DeVries head coach.

McCollum’s teams are known for being fundamentally sound, unselfish and connected on offense and for being relentless and connected on defense.

Of course, he wants players with talent, but there is more to winning than just being able to soar above the rim, even at the Big Ten level.

McCollum was asked Tuesday what he has learned from his one year of coaching at the Division I level?

“From a Division I perspective, what did we learn? The same thing wins,” he said. “It’s the connectivity of your group. It’s toughness. It’s all those things. We didn’t win a lot of warmup contests. A couple of the kids that started probably couldn’t even dunk. They could actually. But I like to make fun of them. But we were the most connected group out there. We were the toughest group, and we were able to win basketball games.

“So, I learned quite a bit, and a lot of it was just making — it was just me understanding that that does still happen at these levels, right, at Drake. It’s not like we have to get this earth-shattering — yeah, you need talented. I got talented guys. But it doesn’t need to be earth shattering and does every position need to be the same in regards to talent? No. You need connectivity, toughness and great kids.”

McCollum shared a story on Tuesday about the time he attended an Iowa summer basketball camp in northwest Iowa when he was in either fourth or fifth grade.

“I think it was four days, three hours a day. And the first day I won the Hawkeye Hustler, which is like the coolest award,” McCollum said. “It was a little medal, and I still have it to this day, I’m sure. And I got through the camp and I got done, and on the Thursday we ended up getting the awards, and I remember I got the MVP of the camp, and the coach went up to my mom and said, man, he reminds me a lot of myself, just from a competitive perspective. And the coach was Bruce Pearl. He was my coach for the camp.

“And it was a cool story. I never knew it until later in life. It was like, yeah, Bruce Pearl was your coach in that.”

Bruce Pearl was an Iowa assistant coach under Tom Davis at that time.

Pearl has since risen to near the top of his profession and is currently the head coach for Auburn, which is a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

McCollum told the story about Pearl probably just to show much Hawkeye basketball has meant to him over the years.

That’s why this feels like a good fit and a good hire because Ben McCollum considers the Iowa job, and the Iowa fans to be special.

He now faces a daunting task in rebuilding the Iowa roster, though, he is off to a god start with Drake point guard Bennett Stirtz expected to follow McCollum to Iowa.

The 6-foot-4 Stirtz was named the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year this season.

There also are currently seven Iowa players in the portal and McCollum made it clear on Tuesday that he would like some of them to stay at Iowa.

“So, for us what I’ve learned from Drake is that don’t overthink, just because somebody is getting a lot of money here, that he’s a better fit for what you do,” McCollum said. “And so we continue to trust our own eyes. At Drake, we took people that we thought could really help build and sustain a culture so that we can continue success into the future.

“Here at Iowa, same concept. I think it’s obviously at a higher level. You do have to take certain transfers, but again, that goes with Hawkeyes making sure that we try to retain some of the kids that are wanting to go into the portal right now and do it quickly.

“And, again, so I’ve said, it takes everybody. It takes everybody to get those kids back. Like that’s what it’s going to take, and that’s what we want, because they’re tough kids and they’re Iowa and they’ll be great for us.”

McCollum addressed the current disconnect with the fans and what it will take to fill Carver-Hawkeye Arena again.

Iowa barely averaged 5,000 fans in 18 home games this season, and that is one of the main reasons Fran McCaffery was let go.

“We’re going to connect,” McCollum said. “Like our players are going to connect with the students. I need to connect with the students, and our whole program does.

“Again, though, it’s not us uplifting this program. It’s the whole university. It’s the students helping as well, and it’s the community of Iowa City as well. It’s former players. You know, some of these former players are, again, they were my idols growing up. Like the NBA I didn’t watch. I watched the Iowa Hawkeyes. Those are my guys. And getting them involved, too, and just creating this awesome environment like that throughout the summer, and just you gotta be out, man.

“It’s Iowa. Like you gotta shake hands. You gotta — when you’re in the grocery store and they come up to you, you gotta say “hi.” Like, what do they say, Iowa nice? It’s God’s country, as we say. So just do little things like that, and I think it goes a long way.”

There was a group of Iowa students waiting to greet McCollum, his wife and their three children when they arrived at Carver-Hawkeye Arena for Tuesday’s press conference.

Many of the students were wearing white button-down shirts and ties, which is how McCollum dresses during games.

He explained why he has stuck with that game-day attire at a time when many head coach now dress more casually for games.

“I used to wear different colored ties and shirts and pants, and then I realized I was terrible at matching,” McCollum said. “So, I went to the white shirt and tie. And then when everyone else kind of went to the like casual look, I always thought in every other profession and like our level of coaches, we make a lot of money, right? And other people in professions have to dress with a level of professionalism. And I’m not saying other coaches are unprofessional, because my assistants don’t wear that, and I think they’re very professional.

“But I’ve always thought that that’s what I needed to wear to act like a pro; and just my thought, my theory. Just because everybody else has to do the same thing that’s in other professions. That’s why I do it. And then it just becomes comfortable, and then you get superstitious. Then you wear the same color every day and then it’s a problem.

McCollum will now start assembling his coaching staff, if he hasn’t started already, and he said when asked that he plans to have some members of his Drake coaching staff join him in Iowa City.

“Obviously for the Power Four level we need to make sure that we have a certain skill set as well, which we’ll get,” McCollum said. “And then there’s your video guy and stuff like that. But we just want great people and guys that we want to do life with. So to answer your question, yes, and then we’ll fill in a couple as well.”

Goetz said Tuesday that Iowa had a “good handful of conversations” with multiple coaching candidates.

“We certainly did our due diligence,” she said. “I could give you a number, but I’m not even sure what that is off the top of my head, more than one hand of individuals.

“No matter what your gut tells you at the beginning, our responsibility is to do the due diligence to make sure we’re going down the right track. and I feel like we did that. So, I feel like we got our guy.”

The feeling seems mutual in that McCollum seems to be enamored with Iowa as much as Iowa is with him.

And that’s a good place to start.