Calvin Hicks, always Drexel’s champ, is along for the NCAA ride | Mike Jensen

The Drexel Dragons showed up at the Colonial Athletic Association tournament, their first successful play came even before tipoff. These tournaments have their protocols, even for signage. That cardboard cutout placed right behind the bench, what’s up with that?

Why’s that cardboard there?

That’s Calvin.

It didn’t take any negotiating: Calvin Hicks stayed put, along for this whole Drexel ride. According to multiple sources, the cutout has made it to Indianapolis and the NCAA Tournament.

The only surprise — who was that guy who didn’t know Calvin? On the list of most recognizable Dragons, Hicks is way up the lifetime basketball list, right there with Malik Rose, future NBA player and hero of Drexel’s last NCAA run in 1996.

» READ MORE: Who is Zach Spiker?

Ask Drexel folks, the strangest part of not having folks in the DAC for men’s and women’s games was obvious … no Calvin yelling defense ... Dragons for the entirety of every defensive series, all game. Let’s do a little math. If Hicks is yelling defense, say, 14 times in a defensive possession, with increasing intensity as the ball gets closer to the basket ... let’s say that’s 14 times in a minute, every minute, for 40 minutes. If that’s 560 times a game, that’s conservative. Let’s say he’s good for 15,000 defenses a season, between men’s and women’s games. For decades now. We’re into the hundreds of thousands, just at the DAC. (He used to travel with the men, too.)

While Hicks, who lives six blocks from the arena, has an intellectual disability, let’s note his overriding resiliency.

This absence has tested him, though.

“He calls me every single day — how are the boys doing? Are they practicing today?’ " said Drexel men’s basketball athletic trainer Mike Westerfer. “He wants to know how practice is every single day. The minute the game is over, he calls me.”

Before health problems hit Hicks, 58, he used to travel with the men’s team, going back to Bill Herrion’s time. Bruiser Flint inherited the relationship when he took over from Herrion, and it goes on.

“He calls me every day,” Flint texted Tuesday.

“There’s a bond formed — they take care of him whenever they can,” Westerfer said of Dragons players. “They know he’s there.”

In fact, Westerfer takes care of him.

“It’s amazing, really,” said Drexel deputy athletic director Nick Gannon. “Westie’s this dry, Roxborough kind of guy. When Bru’s staff left, he clearly took the lead in taking care of Cal.”

“It’s weird not having him in the building,” Westerfer said of this COVID-19 lockdown. “He was the first guy in every day.”

» READ MORE: Cam Wynter's journey

Where would he be?

“Either the coaches’ office or the athletic trainers’ office — he parks himself right in the hallway, for the first person to come in,’' Westerfer said. “Every day. He would stay until practice gets over.”

Men’s and women’s practices …

“You can’t have a bad day when you’re around Calvin,’' Westerfer said.

If visiting administrators and even players don’t know his name, they come in asking about the guy who yells defense.

“I’m on his good side,” Gannon said. “He says, ‘Uncle Nick, you take care of me.’ "

Hicks is ready to get back in the building.

“He asked if he needs to get the shot to get back to work,” Westerfer said. “I told him I’d talk to his doctor.”

Westerfer drops by to see Hicks when he can, every two or three weeks. It’s hard, Westerfer said, because of COVID, he’s extremely careful. They talk outside.

According to KenPom.com, the Dragons have a 4% chance of beating top-seeded Illinois. But do computer models factor in Calvin? Seriously, this man, this human example, has to be a worth a percentage point or two.

“We took him on the plane,” Gannon said, noting hoops chief of staff Rob O’Driscoll, on Zach Spiker’s coaching staff since he got here in 2016, at one point turned to Gannon, “Can you hold on to Calvin? We have to get him through security.”

» READ MORE: Drexel's fastbreak through a pandemic

Same drill for the women, facing Georgia next week in the NCAAs. They’re all just as tight.

“Everyone has a brief exchange with Calvin,” Gannon said, “and they’re all slightly different.”

It turns out Calvin Hicks does not have to be in the gym for players to hear his signature plea. Winning the CAA, getting to March Madness, Calvin was not forgotten in the celebration. They looked around, there was the cutout, all decked out. Dragons assistant coach Mike Jordan already had slipped over and put a CAA Champs T-shirt and hat on Hicks. After the game, the whole team called him by speaker phone.

Truth is, he’d earned that long before the rest of them.