Inductees

Sometimes loss can be the driving force behind success.

Ben McCollum knows that all too well. The former Northwest Missouri State men’s basketball head coach was at a crossroads in 2016 after the Bearcats lost in the NCAA Regional final for the third straight year. His team couldn’t get over the hump and make that leap into the upper echelon of Division II.

“After the season was over, one of our players, Zach Schneider, guaranteed that we would win a national championship,” McCollum said.

Schneider proved to be a prophet, as the 2017 Bearcats earned their first national championship, defeating Fairmount State, 71-61.

“The collective group was completely bought into fighting to be able to win the national title,” McCollum said. “They had an unreal fight to them.”

That attitude – the buy-in and fight – would go on to become hallmarks of McCollum-coached teams at Northwest, as the Bearcats won national titles again in 2019, 2021, and 2022.

McCollum was so respected and admired by his peers at the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) he was named National Division II Coach of the Year in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. And that success is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted McCollum as a with the Class of 2024.

The coaching bug didn’t bite McCollum until after he graduated from Northwest in 2003. He spent four seasons (2004-08) as an assistant coach at Emporia State before becoming, at age 27, the head coach at Northwest Missouri State, replacing his former coach, Steve Tappmeyer (MSHOF 2018).

He was far from an instant success.

His first two teams at Northwest were a combined 22-31, and finished ninth and 10^th, respectively, in the MIAA. Things changed in season three.

In 2011-12, the Bearcats finished 22-11, won the MIAA and reached the NCAA Tournament. Another 20-win season followed in ’12-13, but the Bearcats missed the postseason.

The 2013-14 season is when the Bearcats began to take shape as a national power. Northwest reached the first of three straight Sweet 16s.

What turned it around for McCollum and the Bearcats?

“We built the program with all of the right people,” McCollum said. “We knew if we continued to do the right things the program would eventually have some success.”

After Schneider’s prediction, McCollum led the Bearcats to a 35-1 record and the program’s first National Championship in ’17.

The 2018-19 season was one of the more remarkable at any level of basketball, as the Bearcats finished with a 38-0 record, defeating Point Loma Nazarene in the title game.

McCollum had no idea he was on the verge of a dynasty. That just wasn’t his focus.

“We never really thought of things that way,” McCollum said. “We were very focused on process, with the understanding that the results would take care of themselves.”

The Bearcats were having another special season in 2020 when the pandemic stopped them in their tracks. Northwest was 31-1 overall and the No. 1 seed for the Division II Tournament before play was cancelled.

Northwest more than made up for that missed opportunity in 2021, winning 28 games in an abbreviated season, and downing West Texas A&M, 80-54, for national championship number three.

In 2022, the Bearcats again dominated the scene, posting a 34-5 mark and getting their fourth national championship as Northwest defeated Augusta, 67-58, in the title game.

Despite all the winning, positively impacting the lives of players and setting them up for success after basketball has always been the focus for McCollum.

“The goal is to always make players better men so they can go into the world and make another 15 lives better because of the things they learned in our program,” McCollum said.

In 15 seasons at Northwest, McCollum was 394-91 (.812). Take away his first two years, and McCollum posted an absurd .861 winning percentage. He won 12 MIAA regular-season titles, and eight tournament championships.

It’s no wonder Drake University recently hired him away from Northwest, naming McCollum as its head coach on April 1.

At just 42 years old, McCollum is one of the youngest coaching inductees in Missouri Sports Hall of Fame history. He had some pretty good influences along the way.

“My former college coaches had a tremendous impact,” he said. “Steve Tappmeyer and (former Emporia State coach) David Moe are at the top of the list. So are my wife, Michelle, and my mom.

“I’m just humbled right now, especially at my age and the fact that I am still coaching,” McCollum said of being inducted into the Hall of Fame. “Very humbled and honored.”