Iowa
Iowa State announces gymnastics program will be discontinued
What to know about Iowa State canceling gymnastics season
What to know about Iowa State canceling gymnastics season
Iowa State University announced March 3 that it is cutting its women’s gymnastics program, weeks after abruptly canceling the remainder of the season due to what athletics director Jamie Pollard said were “unreconcilable differences” in the program.
Cyclone gymnasts were informed of the decision to cut the program by ISU associate athletics director Shamaree Brown in a meeting on Tuesday morning, two people with direct knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY Sports Network.
Iowa State gymnastics head coach Ashley Miles Greig and her three assistant coaches were told that their contracts would not be renewed, the university’s news release stated. Miles Greig’s contract was set to expire after the season on June 30, 2026.
Cyclones gymnasts will have the option to remain at Iowa State to finish their degrees, or to transfer to another NCAA school to compete in gymnastics. If they stay at Iowa State, ISU will honor their scholarships. Iowa State’s release said its compliance department would work with the NCAA on waivers to help gymnasts receive an additional year of competition.
Tuesday’s announcement ended weeks of speculation about the program’s future that began when Iowa State canceled its gymnastics season on Feb. 8. In a statement at the time, Brown said the decision was because the Cyclones did not have enough athletes available to compete. In a letter to the gymnastics team and alumni on Feb. 17, Pollard wrote that the cancellation resulted from “a series of complex internal conflicts between individual teammates, coaching staff members, and parents,” language that Iowa State repeated in Tuesday’s release.
In a video released by the school, Pollard said Iowa State would take the next several months to decide which women’s sport would replace gymnastics so that the athletics department remains compliant with Title IX, a federal law that requires NCAA schools to provide proportional participation opportunities to men and women.
“I also want to say, this is not a financial decision. This is a student-athlete experience decision,” Pollard said in the video. “Adding another women’s sport will probably cost equal or more than what we’re already spending on the gymnastics program. This is about student-athlete experience.”
Pollard said that Iowa State conducted reviews of its gymnastics program in 2018 and 2023 stemming from unspecified issues. The 2023 review, conducted by an external law firm, led Iowa State to part ways with then-head coach Jay Ronayne. Miles Greig was hired in April 2023.
On Tuesday, Iowa State denied USA TODAY Sports Network’s public-records request for the findings of the university’s 2018 and 2023 gymnastics probes. In an email denying the request, Ann Lelis, a member of Iowa State’s office of general counsel, cited portions of state open records law that prevent the disclosure of personal information of students or public employees. Lelis also said the requested records were not subject to disclosure because they contained confidential attorney privileged documents.
In the video, Pollard said he asked his senior leadership team “to meet with those individuals in our department that work really closely with our gymnastics program and make a recommendation to me about what we should do going forward.”
The leadership team recommended to Pollard that the school discontinue the gymnastics program, Pollard said, and use those resources for a different women’s sport. Pollard accepted the recommendation from his staff, and he spoke with university leaders. “We are all on the same page,” he said. “This is the right decision for our athletics program and for our student-athletes.”
Cyclone gymnast Samantha Schneider, a redshirt freshman, wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday that she was heartbroken by the decision and criticized Iowa State’s administration for deflecting blame onto the gymnasts.
“Terrible that this is the result of the lack of support from Iowa State’s Athletic Administration,” Schneider wrote. “For the last 5 months, we have come forward as a team regarding (certain) situations and environment concerns and nothing has been done to protect us as athletes on this team. The gymnasts should NOT be blamed or be sharing any part of the responsibility for this decision being made.”
A former member of this season’s coaching staff also mourned the decision in a text message to USA TODAY Sports Network on Tuesday. The person requested anonymity for fear of repercussions.
“At the end of the day this is unfair to the athletes and the alumni that have built this program and have continued to ask for better,” the coach wrote. “It appears that the department was looking for an easy way out or an easy solution, not realizing they would hurt a lot of people in the process. My only hope is that the athletes can come back stronger than ever.”
Miles Greig could not be immediately reached for comment when contacted Tuesday morning by USA TODAY Sports Network.
The Iowa State gymnastics team participated in four competitions this season before the athletics department shut down the remainder of the season on Feb. 8. Nick Joos, Iowa State’s senior associate athletic director for communications, told USA TODAY Sports Network at the time that the cancellation was due to a “combination of injuries and other health issues.”
During what ended up as Iowa State’s final meet against Denver on Feb. 1, several Cyclone gymnasts fell off the uneven bars. The Cyclones forfeited their next meet on Feb. 6 against West Virginia, with Miles Greig saying in a statement, “At this time, we do not have enough student-athletes available to safely field a team against West Virginia, and regrettably must cancel this competition.”
Two days after that, Brown met with gymnasts on Feb. 8 at Iowa State’s on-campus practice gym and informed them that their season would not continue.
Iowa State’s annual financial report submitted to the NCAA for fiscal year 2025 showed the gymnastics program generated $287,392 in total operating revenues with $1.69 million in expenses, a gap of about $1.4 million. Iowa State allotted 14 scholarships to gymnastics. Football and men’s basketball are the only Iowa State sports in which revenue exceeds spending.
Cyclone gymnastics recruits who had committed to the program for the 2026-27 season can commit to a different school or attend Iowa State and have their scholarship agreements honored.
Former Iowa State gymnast Shea Mattingly, whose last name was Anderson when she graduated in 2012, said she had been in contact with other former members of the team after Tuesday’s announcement.
“We’re all frustrated. We’re all angry,” Mattingly said. “That (Pollard) video made us all really mad, honestly. … It places all the blame on these student-athletes whereas the administration’s accountability in this, they hired these coaches that maybe it seems like they couldn’t handle the program.”
Mattingly said she and other alums aren’t giving up hope on the future of the program.
“I think we’re still going to fight,” she said. “So we’re going to send emails. We’re going to call. We’re going to do all we can, even though it seems his mind has been made up.”
Temu sued by Oklahoma AG over alleged deceptive practices
Oklahoma AG sues Temu, alleging illegal data harvesting, deceptive practices and counterfeit Oklahoma merchandise.
Online retailer Temu has sold cheap and counterfeit goods, used underhanded marketing tactics and lied about when and how it takes customers’ data, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says.
Bird is suing the China-based retail giant, accusing it of numerous violations of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. Temu, which has aggressively been promoted in the United States under its “Shop like a Billionaire” tagline, competes with Amazon and other online retailers and operates online marketplaces for third-party sellers.
The lawsuit, filed July 1, cites years of complaints to the Attorney General’s Office, Better Business Bureau and other watchdog groups about the quality and reliability of Temu shopping, with reports often citing purchased merchandise that bear little resemblance to the photos of items offered for sale.
Those complaints are just the tip of the iceberg, Bird alleges. Her suit accuses Temu of dishonest pricing practices, such as labeling items for sale despite listing them at their normal price. Temu also allegedly uses “gamification” tricks to encourage users to make purchases, sign up their friends on Temu, and other actions, but often fails to deliver on the promised benefits, it says.
In some cases, the company is accused of simply fabricating sales. “Numerous” Iowans have reported receiving and being charged for Temu packages they never ordered and were unable to return, the complaint alleges.
The company also has lied about its business practices in other ways, including covering up its use of forced labor to manufacture many of the items it sells, Bird claims.
App allegedly violates data privacy laws
Temu isn’t just angling to make a sale, Bird claims. She also accuses the company of vacuuming up customers’ private data, even hiding code in the company’s mobile apps to bypass users’ cell phone security and collect private data without their consent.
The complaint states that forensic experts retained by Iowa found the app collects data far beyond what might be necessary to complete transactions, conceals its exfiltration of sensitive data and “reconfigures itself even after having been downloaded to a user’s phone” without consent.
Much of this echoes code previously found in Pinduoduo, another e-commerce app owned by the same Chinese conglomerate, which was banned from the Google Play store in 2023 due to malware concerns. Many of those programmers, and much of the banned code, has been transferred to the Temu app, Bird claims.
Iowa Wave among fake merch sold on Temu
Temu often has been accused of violating intellectual property laws, and those practices have directly affected Iowa, Bird claims. The complaint includes examples of unauthorized University of Iowa, Iowa Wave and Dowling Catholic clothing.
Bird notes in her complaint that a portion of sales of authentic Iowa Wave merchandise goes to benefit pediatric cancer patients and others at the Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.
Iowa businesses and sellers on other marketplaces also have reported Temu stealing their branding and in some cases simply copying their product photos and descriptions to market unauthorized products.
Iowa joins several states, including Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska, that have filed consumer protection lawsuits against Temu in recent months. Temu did not respond to a message seeking comment.
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.
What happens when you call 911?
Here’s everything a dispatcher does to get emergency services to your location when you dial 911.
Miguel Fernandez, NorthJersey.com
A 14-year-old Dyersville girl has died from injuries caused by a watercraft collision on Clear Lake on the 4th of July.
The crash involved five people in two personal watercrafts and occurred around 5:30 p.m. near the McIntosh Woods State Park boat ramp on a part of the lake called Little Lake, according to a release from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Passengers on a nearby pontoon immediately helped the victims before the Iowa DNR water patrol and conservation officers, Ventura and Clear Lake fire departments, Iowa State Patrol, Clear Lake Police Department and the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff’s Office came on scene.
The release does not give the names of the four children involved.
A 35-year-old woman, an 11-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, all from Greenwood, South Carolina, were treated at the Mercy-One Medical Center in Mason City and released on July 4. A 15-year-old Mason City girl was transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and is in serious condition.
While the investigation is ongoing, Iowa DNR officers have ruled out alcohol or other impairments as contributing factors to the crash, the release states.
Isabelle Foland is a communities reporter for the Register. Reach her at ifoland@registermedia.com.
As the Iowa State Cyclones get set for the 2026 campaign, the program is also looking toward the future and rebuilding a program that was hit hard by departures.
Last season, Iowa State battled a lot of injuries, but was still able to have a pretty good year. However, following the campaign coming to an end and before bowl season kicked off, the team lost head coach Matt Campbell to the Penn State Nittany Lions.
As expected, a lot of players from the program ended up leaving, leaving the team with nearly an entire roster to rebuild. However, new head coach Jimmy Rogers has been able to come in and make a good impression early on.
While Iowa State might not be as talented as they were last year, they have a good coach and a lot of depth. The Cyclones will be hoping that he can develop and get the most out of some of these new players, but the team certainly won’t be competing for a Big 12 title next season.
For Iowa State, with at least this year being a rebuild for the program, they will be looking toward the future. With that comes a need to recruit well, and that is something Rogers and the staff have been impressive at so far.
Iowa State Recruiting Class Shaping Up Nicely
Following the four-star addition of Chuck Alexander, who flipped from the Louisville Cardinals, the 2027 recruiting class is looking really strong right now for Iowa State. According to Rivals, they rank 49th in the country right now, and that is a strong place to be for the team.
With Alexander being the new top recruit for the team, he will be joining a class that has been highlighted by some good offensive talent so far. Running back Isaiah Hansen is regarded as a very good player at his position, and the team also has offensive lineman Will Slagle.
With the three top recruits so far being offensive players, a future core might be starting to come together for Rogers and the program. While the team might be a bit more defensive-minded this year, there is clearly a focus on improving offensively for the future.
Overall, with time still to go, this class could continue to get better. However, it is really encouraging to see what Rogers and the staff have been able to accomplish so far. Recruiting will be key for Iowa State to get back to where they want to be, and they are off to a strong start.
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