Skip to main content
Join Now
Team Avatar
Iowa

Cooper DeJean plays in pick-up runs versus Ben McCollum

On3 imageby: Sam Gillenwater06/19/25samdg_33
DB Cooper DeJean, Iowa HC Ben McCollum
Julia Hansen | Iowa City Press-Citizen | USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Former Iowa DB Cooper DeJean has proven to be a top-notch athlete beyond just on the football field. That’s including over on the basketball court, as he got a chance this week to play against the new head coach of the Hawkeyes.

DeJean, back in Iowa City training in his first offseason following his rookie year in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles, took the practice floor at the Dale and Marilyn Howard Family Pavilion connected to Carver-Hawkeye Arena. He did so for a few games of pick-up basketball against a team that featured Ben McCollum, Iowa’s new head men’s basketball coach, whom they hired back in late March.

“Coach can play,” DeJean commented on some of the posts of their sessions.

DeJean is a multi-sport athlete despite being in the National Football League. Basketball was one of those sports, averaging 25.9 points (57.8% FG, 39.5% 3PT), 7.8 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game as a senior for Odebolt–Arthur–Battle Creek–Ida Grove High School as they finished as runner-up in the state championship in 2021.

However, DeJean, a Top 250 overall, four-star recruit on the field, went on to play football at his home state program at Iowa. He’d be an athlete for them, playing on defense and special teams in posting 120 tackles, 13 deflections, and seven interceptions with three pick-sixes at defensive back while having 51 returns, at 16.6 yards per, and one score on a punt. He’d finish his career there as an All-American before being a second round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Then, as a rookie in Philly, DeJean would have 51 tackles, six deflections and three fumble recoveries. He also returned 21 punts, as a finalist for Defensive Rookie of the Year and contributed to the Eagles winning Super Bowl LIX with three tackles and a pick-six in the victory over Kansas City.

On the basketball side, McCollum is entering his debut season at Iowa. That’s after one season at Drake, where the Bulldogs went 31-4 overall, won both conference titles in the Missouri Valley, and pulled an upset to make it to the Round of 32 in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. That came following a decade and a half at Northwest Missouri State, where he won four national titles in DII. Now, following the program’s firing of their all-time winningest coach in Fran McCaffery, McCollum takes over with a Top 20 portal class incoming for ’25-’26.