Pollard emotional, excited for return, after surviving heart attack

AMES — Jamie Pollard spoke with a strong demeanor as he chronicled his journey. The Iowa State athletic director's enthusiasm permeated the room when he spoke about stepping into his office for the first time since his heart attack.

Holding his emotions in check was too much to ask, though, when he started talking about all the people who truly made a difference in his life or death. His daughter, Annie, came first.

'I hope I can hold it together,' Pollard said with a shaky voice and tears in his eyes. '(Annie) was put in a tough spot. For a 16-year-old, to watch her dad have a heart attack ... but she was tough. She was instrumental in saving my life to go get help. I'll always be indebted to her.'

Pollard spoke with passion about the urgency shown by athletics trainers, paramedics, Life Flight and hospital staffs in Waterloo and Des Moines. Now six weeks since the heart attack struck without warning, the 50-year-old Pollard is ready to return to his athletics director duties full-time on Monday.

Popping into the office part time has been Pollard's norm for the last couple weeks, but even that has given him energy to return full time. He received advice from Iowa State basketball coach Fred Hoiberg that normalcy would start to resume after roughly five weeks, and that's exactly what Pollard has found to be true.

'I still have several weeks of cardio rehab left, but I've been approved that I try to get to run next Monday on the treadmill so I'm excited about that,' Pollard said. 'I'm really looking forward to having Fred join our group, because he'll be in the same cardio rehab starting in probably a week or week-and-a-half.'

Also See: Video: ISU coach Fred Hoiberg talks overwhelming support on road to recovery

The cause of Pollard's heart attack was ruled to be a dissection, or artery tear, and he most likely was able to live through it because of his physical shape. Even though his father had triple-bypass surgery at 57 years old, Pollard believed that was more of a product of his father's environment.

Pollard sat at his daughter's track meet on March 9 at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls, an hour and a half drive from Ames, and noticed something irregular, which he thought was indigestion. He first thought he would try to wait it out, not realizing the real problem.

'I wonder what would have happened if I had been on the side of the road somewhere on (Interstate) 35 or Highway 20,' Pollard said of what could have been. 'From that perspective, I had a defect and that defect just chose to happen at that particular time.'

After an immediate procedure on Monday night, Pollard went through open-heart surgery the next day and began his six-week road to recovery. Although he doesn't envision much changing about his life day-to-day, there are certain things Pollard, the self-described Type-A personality, would like to avoid.

'One of the first things I did was eliminate from my favorites all of the chat rooms because the chat rooms cause you guys stress and cause me stress,' Pollard said with a laugh. 'They cause coaches and athletes stress.'

One goal Pollard had in mind since his procedure was to be back at work by May and be ready for the upcoming Tailgate Tour.

'In a lot of ways, that time has flown by in a large part due to the wonderful support we received the Cyclone Nation,' Pollard said. 'My family and I feel truly blessed to be surrounded by so many caring and thoughtful people.'

JACK TRICE STADIUM SOUTH END ZONE

Upon Pollard's return to his office at the Jacobson Athletic Building, it was pretty hard for him to miss how much had changed on the other side of Jack Trice Stadium.

Construction on the south end zone project is 'on schedule and on budget' Pollard said. He got to see it first-hand when he went on a tour last Friday.

'It's far better than I could have imagined it was going to be like,' Pollard said. 'I think it looks awesome. It's going to change how the stadium feels on game day. I think it's going to function really well on game day, but it's going to function well for this community on a lot of outside events.'

The expected completion date for the project is August 2015.