Each morning when coach Bob McKillop enters his office in Davidson's Baker Sports Complex, he passes a December 1968 Sports Illustrated magazine that is displayed prominently, one that has a cover picturing North Carolina's Charlie Scott, Kentucky's Mike Casey and Davidson's Mike Maloy, under a headline that reads, "Challengers to UCLA."

McKillop studies the photograph, and thinks, "We can do that."

We can do what? The 1969 Davidson team won 27 games, the most in school history, finished the season ranked third in the nation and fought powerful North Carolina to the final second before falling, 87-85, in the NCAA Elite Eight. One step from the Final Four. Davidson basketball can duplicate that storybook season?

Go ahead, laugh at the supposition, or even scoff at it, but if McKillop didn't believe in his heart that it could be repeated, he wouldn't be in his 17th year as Davidson College's head basketball coach. He's a confessed dreamer. His players, who have seen his teams win seven of the last 10 Southern Conference Division championships, and four straight, call him a dream-maker. So do many of the nation's leading coaches.

"Many times you only hear about the coaches in the power conferences being great coaches," says John Beilein, the highly successful West Virginia coach. "Bob McKillop is equal or better than any other coach that I know, and I've coached against most of the best in the country in my 13 years in Division I."

Like many outstanding coaches, McKillop cloaks himself in mystery lest he dare become predictable, a trait coaches aren't allowed to have. His rŽsumŽ tells an interesting story, one of dedication, discipline, preparation, competitiveness and humility.

He was a successful baseball and basketball player at Chaminade High School in the New York City High School Catholic League, where one of his fellow students in homeroom for four years was Bill O'Reilly of the O'Reilly Factor. Jack Curran, the coach at rival Archbishop Malloy High, helped him get a basketball scholarship to East Carolina. His last game at East Carolina was in the old Charlotte Coliseum in the 1969 Southern Conference tournament championship game, a 102-76 loss to Davidson, a game that stuck in his mind and later would have major consequences in his life.

Homesick and ready to be closer to home, he transferred from East Carolina to Hofstra University where he became the team's MVP and later was inducted into the Hofstra Basketball Hall of Fame. After graduation in 1972, he signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia 76ers but was cut. The 76ers went 9-72 that season. "I was cut from the worst team in NBA history," McKillop jokes. Humility comes in strange packages.

Reluctantly accepting the fact that his playing career was over, he took a job teaching history and coaching basketball at Holy Trinity High in Long Island in 1972. After a sparkling 86-25 record as coach, in 1978 McKillop was offered assistant coaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Davidson where Eddie Biedenbach had just been named head coach. In making his decision, McKillop recalled his last game for East Carolina, the loss to Davidson, the way the fans celebrated the championship. In making his decision between Penn and Davidson, he visited the Davidson campus in northern Mecklenburg County, was stricken with the beauty of the campus, the mission of the college, the uniqueness of the village. "Davidson, here I come!" The Wildcats went 8-19 that season. Penn went to the NCAA Final Four. Oh well.

After one year on the Davidson staff, a great high school opportunity beckoned at Long Island Lutheran High School. McKillop went there as head basketball coach, director of summer programs, and for two years served as interim headmaster. He compiled a record there of 182-51. In his high school coaching career, he won five New York State championships, coached five high school All-Americas, one of whom was Matt Doherty, former head coach at North Carolina and now in the same position at Florida Atlantic University.

"Bob McKillop is easily one of the nation's best coaches," Doherty says. "What he has done at Davidson is truly remarkable. He recruits top-flight students for one of the country's top liberal arts colleges and competes in the demanding Southern Conference along with a ridiculously tough non-conference schedule."

McKillop accepted the challenge of rebuilding Davidson basketball and became its head coach in 1989. He proceeded cautiously at first, as he learned to mesh what fit at Davidson with his personal philosophy. "Davidson is a special place, a unique place," McKillop says. "In recruiting and staffing, we must have the right fit, otherwise it could lead to frustration and immediate failure." Davidson has a special blend of academics, social life and athletics. Not all good players with excellent grades are a fit. McKillop's ability to put the proper people in place has been a leading reason that he has succeeded at such a high level at Davidson.

One of McKillop's former Davidson players, Martin Ides, now in his fourth season of playing professional basketball in Europe, says: "There are many things that set Coach McKillop apart from all the coaches I've had É However, what I appreciate most is what Coach calls our Davidson Ôbasketball family.' I stay in contact with many of our guys É I would love to be on an all-Davidson team again with Coach McKillop leading the way."

McKillop's players talk about his leadership, teaching, and confidence.

"Coach McKillop is the best at preparing his team," says Logan Kosmalski, who was an All-Southern Conference player in 2005 and now plays professionally in France. "His knowledge and attention to detail made us feel like we could win against any opponent."

Now 55 years old, McKillop loves history, politics, Italian cuisine, nice clothes, good books and movies that teach him life's lessons. A frequent lecturer, he has as many basketball friends in Europe as he does in the United States. He once dreamed of being a U.S. Senator from New York, a notion that has since subsided. His reading preferences lean toward history, politics, leadership, coaching stories and not much fiction. Four movies rank as his favorites: Life is Beautiful, Michael Collins, The Godfather, and Schindler's List.

"Those movies teach great lessons about life, family, struggles and leadership," he says. In his view, movies should do more than entertain; they should also teach life's lessons.

McKillop cherishes each moment and treats it as gold. Whether it's on the bus with his team to a road game or waiting for a flight in an airport terminal, he always has work at hand. When a friend was late to a breakfast meeting last summer, McKillop waved it off, saying as he surveyed papers on the table in front of him, "No problem. I had plenty of work to do." He carries his office with him.

He grew up on Long Island and had a fascination with sports for as long as he can remember. He loved Army football and the legacy of the Black Knights of the Hudson. The first college basketball game that he saw in person was at Alumni Hall, St. John's vs. NYU. He loved going to games at Alumni Hall and Madison Square Garden and dreamed of playing for NYU, a powerhouse at the time. Although he's been in North Carolina for 17 years, he hasn't lost the sharp edges of his New York brogue. His phone mail message begins, "How ya doin'?" His metaphors, which he often uses, speak of "Broadway stages," and "magical carpet rides."

His coaching career at Davidson has been scintillating by any barometer. His Davidson record is 262-202. He's coached Davidson longer than any basketball coach, has won more games there than any coach, and his 144 Southern Conference wins are more than any coach in league history. He's been the SoCon Coach of the Year five times, including last season, has won seven conference division titles, two tournament championships, and taken his team to two NCAA tournaments and three postseason NITs. All this winning hasn't come at any academic sacrifice, as 95 percent of his Davidson lettermen have graduated.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski calls McKillop "a sensational coach." Texas coach Rick Barnes says, "There are some great coaches out there who deserve recognition, and Bob is at the very top of that list."

McKillop derived his basketball philosophy from many sources: Lou Carnesecca, Al and Frank McGuire, Jack Curran, Frank Morris, Paul Lynner, Dean Smith, John Wooden, Red Auerbach, Ettore Messina and others. He's studied the winning ways of former college football coaches Ara Parseghian, Bud Wilkinson and Knute Rockne. "I've stolen from the best," he says, laughing.

McKillop's demanding practices are planned to the second. He stresses fundamentals, is a disciplinarian as well as a stickler for details, but his players always know he cares.

Jouni Eho, one of McKillop's former players now playing overseas, was married last summer. McKillop attended the ceremony -- in Finland. "That was very special to me," Eho says.

Terrell Ivory often was present when McKillop was recruiting his brother, Titus, who eventually chose Penn State over Davidson. "Even though Titus didn't go to Davidson, when my father died, Coach McKillop was at the funeral," Terrell said. "I said then that I want to play for this man. He's like a second father to me." Terrell, now an assistant coach in high school basketball, came to Davidson as a walk-on, earned a scholarship and contributed to many wins.

McKillop runs several miles most days, never gains an ounce, and as his assistants can attest, can get so lost in his work that he can go a full day without eating. Sweets are a weakness, though, and he attacks a bag of chocolate chip cookies the way a woodpecker works on a sugar maple. It's common to see him pour chocolate syrup on top of a chocolate brownie.

McKillop and his wife Cathy, a knowledgeable basketball person in her own right, have three children -- Kerrin, 25, a 2002 Davidson graduate, Matthew, 22, a senior on this year's Davidson team, and Brendan, 17, who plays basketball at Charlotte Catholic High.

"Davidson College is a special place," McKillop says. "One reason our teams have been so united and close is because we reflect the total Davidson philosophy. Our players remain close long after they leave Davidson."

When McKillop thinks back to playing against Davidson in 1969, he reflects on the job former coach Lefty Driesell did in putting the Wildcats in the nation's top 10 and twice taking them to the NCAA Elite Eight. "What Lefty Driesell and his players did is one of the greatest stories in college basketball history," McKillop says.

It was the "Broadway stage," is what it was, and McKillop the dreamer thinks there can be an encore.