They waited 54 years to see Drake’s next great NCAA win. The journey was worth it
Tears began to form in the eyes of Dolph Pulliam, as memories from 56 years ago flooded his mind.
He was standing besides seven other Drake University graduates, ranging from ages 72 to 83, who all had packed into a van for an 10-hour road trip and were all dressed in the same attire — white dress shirt paired with a royal blue necktie — to honor their new hero, Ben McCollum, the head coach who had just advanced the Bulldogs the furthest in March Madness since 1971.
Pulliam, a program legend who helped Drake reach the 1969 Final Four, and his “band of brothers” traveled all the way to Wichita to witness the Bulldogs, a No. 11 seed, continue their Cinderella march with a 67-57 win over Missouri at Intrust Bank Arena on Thursday.
“It’s so emotional for me to talk about a team like this from a school like ours,” said Pulliam, his eyes sparkling. “We’re a small school. We don’t have the biggest budget. We don’t have the facilities like the bigger schools. We’re the underdogs and there’s a lot of people cheering for underdogs this time of year. I’m like a kid in a candy shop right now.”
Drake basketball is the bedrock to the friendships that date back more than 50 years. Pulliam was the star player they worshiped, then became a dear friend in later years. They all live in different parts of the country but travel to several Drake games, both home and away, every season.
Steve Pettise, a 1964 Drake graduate, traveled from Park City, Utah on Thursday to make the 6:35 p.m. tipoff. He came to root on the Bulldogs, but just as importantly, he came to do it with his best friends.
“The basketball is what brings us all together,” said Rudy Trebels, a 1973 Drake graduate. “And this is the best team we’ve had in a long, long time. This is a dream come true for us guys. This is as good as it gets… in our lifetime, at least. I mean, we’re not getting any younger.”
It’s easy to root for the Bulldogs this season, as McCollum has led a roster of mostly Division II transfers he brought with him from Northwest Missouri State, where he had won four national championships, to a school-record 31 wins and the first round-of-64 NCAA Tournament victory in program history.
It’s a special season that any Drake fan can appreciate.
But to this group? They can still remember the pain in the late 1990s when the Bulldogs won a combined five games in a two-season span because they were there.
“This is what life is all about,” Frank Ursini said with an euphoric smile. “We all understand how special this is. Nothing is taken for granted. We are going to enjoy this while we can and for as long as we can.”
The sight of such seasoned supporters dressed up like a coach nearly half their age was amusing. Their passion, heard loud and clear from their seats directly behind Drake’s bench, was the perfect representation of what makes March Madness so special.
“I’m not going to lie, I thought it was hilarious,” Drake senior Daniel Abreu said. “I turned around and they were all wearing ties and I was cracking up. But honestly, I was loving it because they were amping us up the whole time. They were yelling, ‘Twenty minutes left! Twelve minutes left! Give it everything!’ That’s exactly what we needed to hear, so I loved that as a player.”
Even McCollum took notice of the fan section.
“I think it’s awesome … not that they dress up like me,” the coach said. “A lot of them have more hair than I do. Dolph looks good, doesn’t he, in that tie?”
Drake president Marty Martin made sure to come over after the game to thank the crew for their support.
“It represents culture, doesn’t it?” Martin said. “It represents a commitment to these young men and how they lift all of us up. Where else do you get to get together and scream your head off for two hours and live and die with every moment and come out with a victory like this and be so joyous? That’s special.”
The group was ecstatic to watch Drake capture its most significant win in 54 years, as Bennett Stirtz poured in a game-high 21 points, McCollum roamed the sidelines with his usual tenacity and Tavion Banks punctuated the victory with an alley-oop dunk in the final minute. But they also had their friend, and ringleader, Bill “Papa” Papastefan, who died in 2007, in their minds, knowing how much he would have loved to see the Bulldogs win on Thursday night.
Watching McCollum and the way he preaches winning basketball at Drake, Pulliam can’t help but be reminded by his 1968-69 team coached by Maury John.
It was also serendipity that Thursday’s game was played in Wichita, where Pulliam’s fateful 1969 run started by beating Louisville at Wichita State’s Field House in a Missouri Valley Conference one-game playoff to punch Drake’s ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
“I’m so proud of this team and these kids because their fight and their tenacity, it brings me back to my guys in 1969,” Pulliam said. “We were underdogs everywhere we went, but we fought. Me and my teammates, the ones who are still alive, we talk all of the time and we can’t stop talking about this program and this team. We are so proud of them.”
Before McCollum ever coached a game at Drake, Pulliam was invited to speak to the team before the start of the season.
He didn’t know Stirtz was about to become a national darling or McCollum was about to pull off one of the most impressive first-year runs as a Division I head coach or the Bulldogs were going to grind teams down with their defense like they did a high-octane Missouri offense on Thursday.
But he remembered the message he left with them, one that made him emotional all over again when he recalled it on Thursday.
“I just asked them, ‘What kind of legacy do you want to leave at Drake University,’” Pulliam said. “Think about it. And I could tell they had not thought about it. ‘Do you want this school to remember you? Then do something that makes them remember you and that will be your legacy. Don’t just come here to play basketball. Come here and leave something for us to remember you.’
“And now, we’re going to remember them.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
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