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.