Iowa State University athletic director Jamie Pollard speaks at a news conference on Sept. 24, 2019 in Ames to address reports of violence by fans directed at Iowa Hawkeye Band members after the season’s Iowa-Iowa State football game on Sept. 14.
Immediately once it was announced Nebraska was in the hunt for a new athletics director after Bill Moos’ abrupt retirement, Jamie Pollard’s name started being tossed around in Husker circles.
Despite some message board fodder and discussion of rumors by reporters in Lincoln, Pollard cleared the air this week during an appearance on the Heartland College Sports podcast.
“Nebraska’s a great program. It has a great history. I have a lot of admiration for Coach Osborne, both as a coach and when he was an AD in the Big 12, and my daughter goes to Nebraska, I love the city of Lincoln, but I love working at Iowa State and I am not leaving Iowa State,” Pollard said. “I’m here. We’ve worked really hard for 17 years to get this program in a spot. I’ll take it as flattery and a huge compliment that there’s folks in Nebraska (who would want him).”
Pollard has led Iowa State athletics through a remarkable transformation during his 17 years at the helm with football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and numerous other sports enjoying stretches of massive success while modernizing facilities and bringing the Cyclones on par with schools across the country.
The piece folks in Nebraska were surely most interested in was Pollard’s hiring of Matt Campbell, who was one of the hottest names in the college football coaching profession upon his hiring in 2015 and has promptly pushed the Cyclones’ football program to new heights with his best roster still returning in 2021.
Going to Nebraska would have meant a reunion with Husker basketball coach Fred Hoiberg, a former ISU player, who Pollard hired to lead the Iowa State program in 2010 despite no on-court coaching experience, leading to the most successful decade in the history of Cyclone men’s basketball.
But it won’t be in the cards for Husker fans as Pollard has made it clear he’s in Ames to stay.
“You know, there was a day 17 years ago that the thought of Iowa State’s athletics director (being the person people in) Nebraska thought that’s who they should go hire (is crazy) because they, rightfully so, did not look at our two programs as being comparable,” Pollard said. “I would argue right now that our program is ahead of their program. I’ll take that as a huge compliment but Jamie Pollard is a Cyclone and I’m going to continue to be a Cyclone.”
