PODCAST: Jamie Pollard on the last 14 days

[Brandon]

He definitely isn't the one who caved... he had no choice but to fall in line with Pres Wintersteen. If it was up to Jamie alone, I'm pretty confident based on his tone that he would have told the community/faculty to pound sand and would push on with his original plan.

Well in my opinion he shot to high initially with his attendance mark, it was nearly twice what the other big 12 schools went with to start.

 

[Mr Janny]

I seem to remember an instructor telling us the college could've been located in Nevada, but the town decided they wanted to be the county seat.

Not sure why you're thinking of moving ISU.

Ames is ISU. Without the college Ames is just another ****** Iowa town

Again that might be true, but it doesn't matter, because Iowa State IS in Ames, and it's not going anywhere. Las Vegas would just be a tiny desert town without the casinos. Sure, but they ARE there. Unless Iowa State is threatening to leave Ames, what does it matter?

 

[ISUAgronomist]

@ChrisMWilliams

This was a great interview. Thanks for pulling this one together and getting it out there for everyone.

 

[ScottyP]

The way I heard it, Boone had a choice between the railroad and ISU. They chose the railroad.

A professor told our class that the town of Rhodes was almost the location of ISU. I'm not sure how accurate that was.

 

[aauummm]

I had an opportunity to work in Ames several years ago and turned it down because everyone I knew said there were "experts" in everything that wanted to control everything about the town. I suppose it gets that way when you have so many PhDs in a small town. Sounds much the same.

After graduating from ISU I accepted a position with the IDOT in Ames because I was already working there as an intern while in school. After being there for one year I decided to get the heck out of Ames and go to work in a real life city and so I did. To me everyone in Ames was either connected to ISU or IDOT and I didn't like that type of narrow minded thinking and behaving. That was the one and only reason for me to move out of there.

 

[CyCloned]

The high number of cases in Ames was directly related to large numbers of students coming back and being utterly irresponsible, standing in long lines at bars without masks and partying without social distancing.

please, feel free to tell me how that correlates to game attendance at Jack Trice when social distancing and masks are strictly enforced?

It was a knee jerk reaction, but when you town is suddenly the worst place in the world, it gets a lot of attention. Not saying that the 25K would have gone off without a hitch, but most fans understand that if they fail to follow the protocols it could be no fans for the rest of the year.

As Jamie stated, there was a huge spike in cases because they basically tested every student. In that age group probably 60% are asystematic. If you were using any logic, you would not let students into the games, since they are the ones causing the spike.

 

[CloneAlta]

Super raw, even for Jamie's standards. Must-listen. Enjoy.

PODCAST: Jamie Pollard on the last 14 days

Crazy times, we are living in. The last 14 days in the Iowa State athletics department have been unlike any other. The leader of the department, Jamie Pollard, sat down with Chris Williams on Thursday morning to give the scoop on how it all went down. Enjoy.

cyclonefanatic.com

Chris, THIS interview has to be the best interview pertaining to sports I have ever heard!! You did a great job in being prepared, your relationship with Jamie is such that there is strong trust, which then enables him to be as open as he was and the insight that was delivered to everyone who listens to this and is an ISU fan should give enormous confidence in the leadership of the ISU Athletics Department!! It should also give Iowan who are ISU fans a desire to call for an end to tenure at ISU!! If we're not careful, the inmates are going to chase the best AD and one of the best FB coaches (and maybe some other top notch coaches) away from ISU!!

 

[Jiub]

Super raw, even for Jamie's standards. Must-listen. Enjoy.

PODCAST: Jamie Pollard on the last 14 days

Crazy times, we are living in. The last 14 days in the Iowa State athletics department have been unlike any other. The leader of the department, Jamie Pollard, sat down with Chris Williams on Thursday morning to give the scoop on how it all went down. Enjoy.

cyclonefanatic.com

Thanks for the great podcast Chris. Jamie is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

[MustardTiger]

In the end, Jamie should have gone with his original plans for no fans for the first game considering the high numbers of cases in Ames over the first few weeks of school.

Then you missed his entire point. The whole idea was to present a unified front between the university and the athletic department. Kids in classrooms meant fans in stands. He wanted to be united in the decision with Wintersteen. Faculty bailed on Wintersteen when she was ready to move to all online (which would have meant no fans in stands).

 

[HFCS]

Pollard makes some very good points. He's in a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario, and I wouldn't want to be in his position at all. That said, he kept saying that "the community decided they didn't want fans" and "the community decided they didn't want to cut the arts."

The community doesn't get to decide those things. Iowa State does. The community is allowed to have an opinion on it, and it can be a very loud opinion, but it's Iowa State's call. It's Iowa State's tolerance for the expected reaction to a decision that is tested. If Pollard and the university president wanted to have fans in the stands on Saturday, they could have. Nobody could have stopped them. But as much as the city needs ISU, ISU is a part of the community as well. It's not like the school can pick up and move to Boone. Public opinion matters, even if it's ill informed and misguided. That's not unique to Ames. That's just the way the world works. I really liked a lot of that interview, and I have always been a big Pollard fan and supporter, but some of that feels like he's pissing into the wind and getting upset that his shoes are getting wet.

This sums it up for me. I've always been a huge JP fan and I think things could have looked pretty bad for ISU athletics with someone else in charge this past decade plus.

Going from 40% capacity to 0 fans is something that can be second guessed. If 40% was almost a done deal, isn't it logical that 20% could have worked? 25K and 0 both seem reactionary the way it played out. No fans from the start wouldn't have seemed reactionary. 25-10% capacity wouldn't have surprised me like the morning I read 25k fans including 5k students given what we know about student populations nationwide.

I do think even many people who haven't agreed with JP on this, will go back to being his #1 fan in post-covid era where he's still hopefully our AD. He's in a tough spot, but so are a lot of us. I can't tell the shocking hard data of my company's international sales figures on this board without three or four posters yelling "fake news" at me.

 

[cykadelic2]

After graduating from ISU I accepted a position with the IDOT in Ames because I was already working there as an intern while in school. After being there for one year I decided to get the heck out of Ames and go to work in a real life city and so I did. To me everyone in Ames was either connected to ISU or IDOT and I didn't like that type of narrow minded thinking and behaving. That was the one and only reason for me to move out of there.

Several years ago, I was offered a position in Central IA where I would relocate from out of state. When I mentioned Ames as a potential place to live, some relatives and friends warned me not to do it for the reasons you mention. I ended up declining the position and stayed put (thank goodness I did so in hindsight).

Thx to CW for that podcast and kudos to JP for giving the middle finger to his numerous dumbass critics here on this board and elsewhere.

 

[isutrevman]

I especially liked him calling out people for freaking out when Ames was labeled as "having the worst breakout in the country". It should have been obvious to everyone that the spike in numbers came from them mass testing students who they knew were probably exposed. If it was actually a hot spot, the numbers wouldn't have plummeted in 1 week like they have. The anti fans in the stands and anti in-person classes crowd were creaming themselves over the idea of Ames being the worst town in America for coronavirus.

 

[cydsho]

 

[jdcyclone19]

JP makes good points, but he's wrong when he says "none of the faculty on this campus have taken a pay cut...not a dime."

A lot of people don't know that ISU reduced TIAA match contributions for employees by 2% until July 2021. That is technically a pay cut from a benefit.

 

[Cyclonepride]

So it was pretty much ISU faculty that got the attendance decision changed?

I'd say yes, and I'd go further to say that this isn't merely venting. This is intentionally bringing this into the public sphere to garner support for his position (mission accomplished, IMO), since he tried to play nice and was stabbed in the back for it.

 

[volclone]

"Don't write me if you don't know what you are talking about"

Just put that on a sign outside the stadium.

And put it at the top of the page on Twitter, Facebook, CF, etc....

 

[Urbandale2013]

I can just say I have full confidence in Pollard navigating this issue. I may not degree with him on basketball expectations, but there isn't anyone I would rather have as AD right now.

 

[HFCS]

The anti play football and anti in-person classes crowd were creaming themselves over the idea of Ames being the worst town in America for coronavirus.

I haven't seen anyone on this board who is anti-playing football. I've seen debates about fan attendance where there are good points to be made from many views (my own view on that changes daily).

They're already practicing, it's idiotic to not have no games at all like the Big Ten is doing when you're having practice.

Are there local people in Ames who are against zero fan games?

 

[ArgentCy]

Then you missed his entire point. The whole idea was to present a unified front between the university and the athletic department. Kids in classrooms meant fans in stands. He wanted to be united in the decision with Wintersteen. Faculty bailed on Wintersteen when she was ready to move to all online (which would have meant no fans in stands).

No one else is going to call out these faculty? Lol, he pointed out that the lowly Fareway worker is out there exposed for peanuts yet, these teachers wanna get paid much more and can't be bothered to be around students. I guess they aren't as essential as the stock-people.

 

[MustardTiger]

I'd say yes, and I'd go further to say that this isn't merely venting. This is intentionally bringing this into the public sphere to garner support for his position (mission accomplished, IMO), since he tried to play nice and was stabbed in the back for it.

This times a million. Jamie wanted the university and the athletic department to make the decisions together. When they turned on him (and their own president) he'd had enough. Can't have cake if its all eaten up.