Todd Brommelkamp / 1600ESPN
I had never met Ben McCollum before briefly introducing myself to the new Iowa men’s basketball coach last Tuesday afternoon. Yet, for some reason, listening to the Iowa City native speak during his introductory news conference, he seemed all too familiar.
Judging by the online reaction of a number of people similar in age to me, I may not have been alone in that feeling.
Ben McCollum is one of us.
Iowa men’s basketball coach Ben McCollum was introduced to the media during a March 25, 2025, news conference in Iowa City.
He was a pre-teen living in Storm Lake when he took home the “Hawkeye Hustler” award during an Iowa basketball camp organized by Jerry Strom. The small medal is still somewhere in his possession.
He dreamed of one day suiting up for Dr. Tom Davis in Iowa City, comparing his own height and weight to that of Hawkeye guard Mon’ter Glasper.
“I always dreamed of playing for the Hawkeyes, and I just wasn’t good enough,” he said early in his opening remarks. “So, I didn’t get to play for them, but now I get to coach them and hopefully bring success here.”
A successful coach at Division II Northwest Missouri State and, albeit for just one year, at Drake, McCollum was Athletic Director Beth Goetz’s final choice to replace Fran McCaffery. The hiring process was completed Monday morning when McCollum put pen to paper. A day later he and his family were on a private jet to Iowa City.
“It’s truly a special day for Hawkeye men’s basketball and the start of a new opportunity to build on tradition, inspire success and ignite the passion of the loyal black and gold,” Goetz said.
That lack of fire among fans was a major reason Iowa’s AD pulled the trigger on making a “leadership change” earlier this month. Empty seats outnumbered those that were occupied during Iowa’s recently completed season.
McCollum knows it didn’t always used to be like this in Iowa City.
“Our goal is to get Carver-Hawkeye Arena filled back up, to create an environment where other fans want to come and to be the best venue in the state of Iowa,” McCollum said. “And we’re going to fight for that. We’re going to compete for that. We’ve done that at other schools, and hopefully we can do that here.”
McCollum came of age at a time when Carver-Hawkeye Arena was filled to the rafters with fans and Hawkeye games were appointment viewing.
“Growing up, I didn’t watch the NBA,” he said. “I watched the Iowa Hawkeyes.”
As did I when the Hawks were on television. I ceded the living room television set to my parents, relocating to the kitchen where an ancient black and white television set sat perched atop a freezer. Larry Morgan and Mac McCausland, the latter of whom I would one day be privileged enough to call a friend, were conduits of information on not just the Hawkeyes but the rest of the Big Ten. Not only did you know the names of every player on Iowa’s roster but you knew the opponents and coaches at places like Illinois and Indiana as well.
“To the past players, you’re who I idolized,” McCollum said, rattling off names of Hawkeyes past like Wade Lookingbill and Val Barnes.
Of course there were references to the ultimate Hawkeye as well.
“Have you ever seen Chris Street play?” McCollum asked. “Like, just with the intensity, the energy, the effort, the enthusiasm, the joy, the servant mentality, the toughness. Everything that Iowa stands for is what our team is going to look like.”
His comments inspired a fervor from a sector of the Iowa fan base similar to how the Reverend Cleophus James, played by singer James Brown, reached John Belishi’s Jake in the movie “The Blues Brothers.”
Have you seen the light?
Ben McCollum is one of us.
He’s old enough to remember B.J. Armstrong and Roy Marble. He can connect the dots from Brad Lohaus to Les Jepsen to Acie Earl. He remembers the Dr. Tom press and the yellow Carver court.
More than anything he wants to recapture that magic, when it felt like anything was possible for a basketball program that had tasted various levels of success throughout the decades but had never broken through and won the big one.
It still felt like anything was possible before a snowplow took Street away and before Davis’ recruiting misses began to far outnumber his hits. Before Steve Alford and Pierre Pierce. Before gut-wrenching NCAA losses to schools like Northwestern State and Richmond.
The latter is its own form of torture for fans and part of the reason McCaffery is no longer coaching here. Iowa hasn’t reached the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament since Davis’ final campaign. McCollum was a senior in high school. Three coaches have come and gone since then.
“Ben has roots here and, to be sure, that’s a special part of this story, but not why I thought Ben was the perfect leader for this program,” Goetz said. “Coach McCollum is a proven winner and a teacher of the game. He creates teams that are defined by their hard work and culture.”
In other words, his teams will be familiar to anyone in my general age range.
“We want to create that home court advantage, which is something that we have done before,” he said. “We want to do that here and create a level of excitement for everybody at Iowa and get it to what I remember when I walked into Carver, and again, loud, full crowds, and get it to that point.”
It won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight. It may not happen at all. Just don’t tell him that.
“I’m going to fight for Iowa, and we’re going to get this thing going again.”
Todd Brommelkamp is the host of “The Todd Brommelkamp Show” and can be heard weekday mornings on 1600ESPN from 6:30 to 9 a.m.
