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Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard talks future retirement, booze | Hines
Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard on Tailgate Tour for new coaches
Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard on the opportunity for new coaches on Tailgate Tour
WATERLOO – It was probably a bit more than two years ago when the hints, innuendo, gossip and speculation started to accumulate.
In conversations with coaches or administrators or the otherwise well-connected within Iowa State athletics circles, any discussion about the not-too-distant future of Cyclone sports would take a sort of detour.
‘You know,’ they’d say, ‘Jamie isn’t going to be here forever.’
Do tell, I’d ask.
‘It wouldn’t shock me,’ they’d note, ‘if Jamie called it a career sooner than you’d think.’
Jamie being, of course, Jamie Pollard, Iowa State’s longest-tenured athletics director. He is, of course, still Iowa State’s athletic director, and he’s under contract to be so through 2030 after signing a five-year extension early in 2025. Which, given the gathering momentum of speculation about a potential impending retirement, surprised plenty of people plugged in to the Jacobson Athletic Building when it was announced.
So the rumor mill, as it so often does, began spinning again. This time, with an explanation of why it was wrong the first time.
Iowa State president Wendy Wintersteen, who would announce her own retirement three months after that Pollard extension, asked the athletic director to extend his record-setting tenure to keep continuity and stability on the university’s front porch while it underwent change at the top.
Or so the story went.
“I don’t know that I’d say that’s 100 percent accurate,” Pollard said last month when I presented him with that scenario at the Cyclone Tailgate Tour.
“It’s close.”
Whatever the exact machinations, Pollard will enter his 22nd year guiding Iowa State athletics this fall, but, you know, he won’t be forever.
“I’ve basically said if this was a game of soccer, we’d be in extra time,” Pollard, 61, told me. “Nobody knows how much time is left on the clock, including the player.
“A big thing for (wife) Ellen and me, is there is a ‘next,’ and we want to physically and mentally be able to enjoy ‘next,’ but, at the same time, I want to make sure when that day comes, that we hand it off in as good a spot as can be.”
Which is no small reason why that retirement many were expecting was postponed when Wintersteen told him her career was winding to its end. After being at a place for two decades, what’s a few more years? Especially if it helps keep that place you care deeply about better situated for the future.
Eventually, though, that postponement will end. That future will arrive – without Pollard.
“At some point and time that’s going to happen for all of us, right?” Pollard, who recently became a grandfather, said. “When’s the right time to do that? We’ll have to figure that out.
“It’s a work in progress.”
That work is complicated by the sheer volume of volatility collegiate sports are currently enduring. When the industry’s leaders become regulars at congressional testimony, it’s a pretty good sign that things are not going smoothly and orderly. And even more locally, Iowa State just had a head coaching change in football, axed its gymnastics program, began a women’s wrestling program, projects a future budget shortfall and has something like a $200 million development underway with CyTown.
I’m not saying an AD changeover will be like a couple of jugglers trying to pass flaming chainsaws, but I mean, maybe I am?
“At some point in time, you have to transition it to whatever comes next,” Pollard said, “and unfortunately, our industry, the ground’s changing under our feet as we talk. We’re going to have to figure out how to deal with that part of it, and I think a big part for Iowa State is just making sure our financial situation is as solid as it can be.
“It’s clearly not what it once was, but we’re never going back to those days, either.”
Budget issues softened, but still significant
It made headlines last year when Iowa State athletics presented that it was projecting a $147 million budget deficit through 2031, largely, the school said, due to the House settlement that allowed for revenue sharing with student-athletes. Essentially, it was a new $20 million-plus yearly line item for a department whose budget only eclipsed $100 million in 2022.
The Cyclones, through internal alterations, have been able to cut that project deficit, essentially, in half, Pollard said. Still, something like a $75 million budget shortfall over the next five years is nobody’s idea of a good time.
“The low-hanging fruit has been picked,” Pollard said. “You can’t just always go back to raise ticket prices, donations – that’s going to have to be a part of it, just plain and simple, but that’s not going to get us there, either.
“There’s going to have to be some other decisions that are made, whether it’s campus-wise, regents-wise or state-wise.”
Pollard noted there could be changes to how Iowa State handles its tuition, scholarships and student fees. The state, he said, could make the athletic department the beneficiaries of a gambling tax hike or provide direct support for CyTown, which the university is betting on being an “economic engine.”
“There’s just things like that,” Pollard said. “There’s still some fruit to be picked, but it’s not the low-hanging fruit.”
Which begs the obvious question – is any of that fruit of the fermented variety?
Will Iowa State sell alcohol at games?
Pollard has long been resistant to calls to serve alcohol to the general public at Jack Trice Stadium and Hilton Coliseum.
It’s been a consistent position for the better part of two decades. You may remember he said, “People are flat-out slobs,” last year when asked for reasons why Iowa State doesn’t sell booze at games. It made the news and everything.
Still, a $75 million deficit is a $75 million deficit, and, well, booze means dough.
“It’s something we’re considering,” Pollard said. “Continuing to discuss.”
Iowa State has been selling alcohol at Jack Trice Stadium in recent years when musical acts have taken up residence, and that’s been something of an educational experience for Iowa State.
Reviews I’ve gotten have been hit-and-miss in how well it’s actually worked from a fan perspective. Which is to say, the expedience with which you can get a beer hasn’t been great. Of course, that is exactly the sort of thing Iowa State is trial-running during these concerts.
“The stadium’s not built to clog the concourses for people standing in line to go to the bathroom or go to the concession stands,” Pollard said.
Then there’s also the 4,000 people who leave Iowa State football games at halftime to hit the tailgate lots before returning to the game. If Jack Trice Stadium goes wet, re-entry goes away.
“As the person who will get the emails from those 4,000 people,” Pollard said, “that will be a tough pill for those people to swallow.
“There’s tradeoffs, so those are things we’ve got to work our way through.”
Ultimately, though, the door is open. Or, rather, it is being kicked down by a $75 million deficit. Which is enough to convert longtime holdouts like Iowa State – and, specifically, Pollard – to reconsider their stance.
“As athletics director, I’m the voice for the campus,” Pollard said, “so to say it was Jamie Pollard who didn’t want to sell alcohol, that was just me representing the university’s decision. I agreed with the decision, but it wasn’t just my decision.
“Secondly, we have to look at the fruit that’s not low-hanging, and there will be tradeoffs. I’ve had several donors that are upset if we sell beer. But that will be a discussion with those people, ‘If we do this, this is why we’ve had to do it.’”
Tailgate Tour turns 20
After doing media interviews, shaking hands and talking ball at the Cyclone Tailgate Tour stop at SingleSpeed Brewing, Pollard made his way to the end of the brewery’s long bar to order a flight of beer.
Before long, he was at the microphone. As the sun streamed in through the windows behind him, he addressed the couple of hundred Iowa State fans spending their lunch hour welcoming the Cyclone big shots to northeast Iowa.
There was talk of the success of the last year. The optimism for the future. There was, too, a bit of reminiscing about the 20 years of Tailgate Tours that have made their way across the state. This entire operation – one that reaches thousands of Cyclone fans in their hometowns every year – has been Pollard’s project.
The first era of those road trips created connections. The next sustained and grew them.
After talking to the Cyclone faithful, shaking some more hands and talking some more ball, Pollard walked back to the Iowa State bus, bound for the next stop.
Iowa State columnist Travis Hines has covered the Cyclones for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune since 2012. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.