Ben McCollum, Bennett Stirtz and more appear during Kickoff at Kinnick
Iowa men’s basketball coach Ben McCollum and others appeared during Kickoff at Kinnick on Aug. 22, 2025.
IOWA CITY — You might know about the players who transferred from Drake to Iowa basketball, following head coach Ben McCollum to the Hawkeyes.
There are six of them, to be exact. One of those is star Bennett Stirtz, who has been with McCollum since the coach’s time at Northwest Missouri State.
High school prospect Tate Sage was also part of the widespread movement from Drake to Iowa. He was signed to play for McCollum in Des Moines before flipping to the Hawkeyes.
And then there’s the coaching staff. You might know some of their stories, too.
Three of Iowa’s four assistant coaches came from Drake — Josh Sash, Bryston Williams and Connor Wheeler. Not to mention those in other roles, such as Jesse Shaw, Xavier Kurth, Jaran Richman and Jace Smith.
They all came from Drake. Kurth and Richman have been on staff with McCollum since Northwest Missouri State.
It’s clear there’s loyalty to McCollum.
But that loyalty runs deeper than you might think.
Meet Brayden Parra, an undergraduate student manager who has followed McCollum from Northwest Missouri State to Drake and now to Iowa.
Parra attended Northwest Missouri State as a freshman and is now in his third school in as many years. He’s had a different major at each stop.
“They say I’m like the face of the manager portal,” Parra said.
Video: Bennett Stirtz explains why he followed Ben McCollum to Iowa
Iowa basketball’s Bennett Stirtz meets with the media on June 24, 2025.
Parra wanted to play college basketball and tried to walk on at Northwest Missouri State, but he wasn’t good enough. The same day that Parra played pickup with the team at Northwest Missouri State, McCollum talked to him about being a manager.
Even after only having a limited window into the program, Parra realized it was something he wanted to be a part of.
“Everyone says culture,” Parra said. “But that culture’s different. It’s just different. Like the pickup (games), the coaches are up top watching, and it’s all player-led. You would think it’s a full-blown middle of the season practice before a March Madness game or something. Just in an open gym pickup run with some recruits there.
“You look up and you see the national championships and all that, but you just feel that’s something that was going to continue there or wherever he (McCollum) ended up. (I) wanted to get into coaching after I was done playing. I just felt like with him, the staff, all of it, the culture, that that was the best spot to get into it.”
Parra spent his freshman year as a student manager for a Bearcats team that went 29-5 overall. After that season, McCollum took the step from Division II to Division I when he accepted the head coaching job at Drake.
Parra had the opportunity to join McCollum in Des Moines.
But that would require sacrifices. Parra, who went to high school in Kansas City, Missouri, would be farther away from home. The time commitment of a manager would be more demanding than at the Division II level.
So, why did Parra do it?
“Coach (McCollum), if I’m being honest,” Parra said. “Just him. Coaching’s my end goal. And with him, I just see my career path clearer than if I was working under anyone else. Once you work for him for a year, it’s like, man, I don’t know if I could work for someone else and do this. It’d be a tough, tough deal.”
Parra was then a part of the Bulldogs team that embarked on a memorable 2024-25 season, advancing to the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament and finishing with a 31-4 overall record.
McCollum took the job at Iowa. Naturally, Parra, who had already changed schools once, did so again.
“Our assistants like to make the joke that I’m like the AJ Storr of managers,” Parra said.
(Storr has infamously been a part of four programs in four seasons as a college basketball player.)
But unlike Storr, Parra has never played a single possession of college basketball.
“I feel like every parent in the world — not every, but most of them, like 99.9% — would be like, you need to get your degree done,” said Sam Hawley, an Iowa basketball staff member, who also worked alongside Parra at Northwest Missouri State and Drake. “Like you’re going to be in college for six years now because you’ve got to change majors three times. It’s nuts, but he’s a really good, hard worker. He’s really good at what he does.
“He’s very passionate about what he does. And so, seeing those like every day, it just like brings the juice to you too, because it’s like dang, this guy has like put everything on the line, sort of, in a way. That motivates you every day to be like, hey, I need to give it my all today.”
Parra is not the only story like this.
On top of his role with the Hawkeyes, Hawley is currently working toward a master’s degree from Drake while also holding multiple jobs, including at Hy-Vee. Assistant coach Luke Barnwell left Texas Tech, a program that was on the doorstep of reaching the Final Four last season, with the opportunity to work for McCollum as a driving factor.
And then there is Parra, now a junior, who boasts maybe the most extreme circumstances of them all.
“But I wouldn’t change it,” Parra said. “I can tell you that. Definitely wouldn’t change it.”
Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at ttachman@gannett.com