Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard ‘not worrying’ about selection of new university president

HARLAN - Before the end of the upcoming football season, Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard will be working under the third university president of his tenure.

The impending change, which sees former ISU president Steven Leath taking the same position at Auburn University, speaks to Pollard's longevity in Ames. It also gives him perspective on what this change entails.

'I'm glad I'm in Year 12 because if I was in Year 2, I'd probably feel a little more apprehensive about it,” Pollard said at the first stop of the Cyclone Tailgate Tour. 'Change is inevitable, but change is also a challenge. I'm not spending a lot of time worrying about it because I can't control any of it.”

Pollard stepped in as ISU athletics director in the fall of 2005, nearly halfway through former ISU president Gregory Geoffroy's tenure. He saw the Leath era through from start to finish from 2012 through last month, and will work with interim president Ben Allen, formerly the University of Northern Iowa president.

Iowa State has invested $160 million in construction and facility renovations for a number of ISU athletics teams, developed a digital television network (Cyclones.tv) and eliminated the athletic department's dependence on state funding under Pollard's direction.

Pollard's hope for the new ISU president is their visions on the role of athletics in a university's functionality align - similar to his relationships with Geoffroy and Leath.

'Just tell me who the president, he or she, is going to be and then it's our job to adjust to them,” Pollard said. 'Hopefully they'll be somebody that shares the same appreciation for the value of athletics that our previous two presidents have. If we get that then everything will be just fine.”

AGB Search of Washington, D.C. will aid a 21-person search committee in naming Leath's successor. No one on the committee, however, is directly pulled from the athletics department.

'In the end (not being on the committee is) not going to matter at that particular point,” Pollard said. 'What will matter are the values of the person that they hire.

'There are representatives from alums and other people that understand athletics. I'm not worried about that part.”

Once a new president is selected, Pollard said his initial phone call wouldn't be far behind.

'Let's just say if they beat me to the punch then they're really, really good because we will be quick,” Pollard said. 'Ben Allen heard from me before it was public and got swag in the mail at his home in Saint Louis.

'It would be foolish not to cultivate your new boss.”

Athletics performance center in early phase

In Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard's 12-year tenure, renovations to Jack Trice Stadium, the construction of the Sukup Basketball Complex and a number of other projects have come to fruition.

The next step for Pollard, whose contract was extended to 2024 in January, could be a performance center. The shift in college athletics over the last decade to a focus on sports science has Iowa State looking toward a way to maximize nutrition and recovery for its athletes, with the focus centering on football.

'There isn't anything visual to present yet because we haven't even gone through that process with campus,” Pollard said. 'I think we need to have a better sense of, ‘What do we want to do?' Then depending where that is, how it impacts others on campus, do we have those people with us in the process?”

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