Benjamin M. McCollum (born April 12, 1981) is the men's basketball head coach at

Northwest Missouri State University Northwest Missouri State University is a public university in Maryville, Missouri. It has an enrollment of about 8,505 students. Founded in 1905 as a teachers college, its campus is based on the design for Forest Park at the 1904 St. Louis Worl ...

Maryville, Missouri Maryville is a city and county seat of Nodaway County, Missouri, United States. Located in the "Missouri Point" region, As of the 2020 census, the city population was 10,633. Maryville is home to Northwest Missouri State University and Northwes ...

. McCollum was born in

Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...

, and grew up in Storm Lake, Iowa, where he graduated from St. Mary's High School in 1999. He played basketball for two years at

North Iowa Area Community College North Iowa Area Community College (NIACC) is a public community college in Mason City, Iowa. History NIACC began as Mason City Junior College in 1918, becoming the first public two-year college in Iowa. The college was located in the high school ...

before transferring in 2001 to Northwest, where he played for Steve Tappmeyer as the school made its first Elite Eight appearance. He graduated from Northwest in 2003 with a degree in business finance and received a master's degree in athletic administration from the school in 2004. He was an assistant coach at

Emporia State University Emporia State University (Emporia State or ESU) is a public university in Emporia, Kansas, United States. Established in March 1863 as the Kansas State Normal School, Emporia State is the third-oldest public university in the state of Kansas. Em ...

from 2004 to 2008, then joined Northwest as its head coach in 2009. McCollum's team struggled the first two seasons with records of 12–15 in 2009–10 and 10–16 in 2010–11. In the 2011–12 season, his team went 22–7, won the regular-season MIAA crown and played in the first round of the NCAA tournament. In 2012, he was honored for the turnaround with the

Clarence Gaines Award The Clarence "Big House" Gaines Award is an award given annually by CollegeInsider.com to the most outstanding men's college basketball head coach in NCAA Division II. The award was established in 2011 and is named for the late Clarence Gaines, w ...

as the best NCAA Division II coach.

Head coach record

References

External links

McCollum's Biography
1982 births Living people American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Iowa Basketball players from Iowa College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Emporia State Hornets basketball coaches Junior college men's basketball players in the United States Northwest Missouri State Bearcats men's basketball coaches Northwest Missouri State Bearcats men's basketball players People from Storm Lake, Iowa {{US-basketball-coach-stub