AMES, Iowa – Jamie Pollard, the longest tenured Director of Athletics in Iowa State history, announced today that he will retire after a transformative and innovative 22-year career leading the Cyclones’ 18-sport intercollegiate athletics program. The nation’s longest tenured active Power 4 Athletics Director plans to retire effective June 30, 2027, or when a new athletics director is in place.
“My wife, Ellen, and I look forward to the next chapter in our life’s journey,” said Pollard, “and it is important to us that we transition now, while we are both healthy and young, so we can fully enjoy our retirement years. I am grateful to President Cook for allowing me to share this news now and hopefully it will allow the university plenty of time to properly transition new leadership to our department during a transformational time in college athletics.
“When we moved to Ames in 2005, we did not anticipate the impact being a Cyclone would have on our family,” he added. “The personal and professional opportunities our family has experienced during the past 21 years have been truly amazing.”
Pollard’s visionary leadership and relentless commitment to academic and athletic excellence have guided the Iowa State Athletics Department to unprecedented heights over the past two decades.
Academic & Athletic Excellence Under Pollard
Iowa State student-athletes have thrived academically under Pollard’s direction, and they continued their record-breaking classroom achievements during the 2025-26 academic year. Based upon the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) most recent academic metrics, ISU’s 95 percent 2025 institutional Graduation Success Rate (GSR) equaled the school record of the previous three years and marked the 11th-consecutive year it set a new school record, while its most-recent multi-year 992 institutional Academic Progress Rate (APR) was also a school-record. ISU has earned 27 all-time academic NCAA Public Recognition Awards in 11 different sports during his tenure.
The Cyclones have won 24 Big 12 team titles in eight different sports, played in 11 bowl games (including winning the 2021 Fiesta Bowl), 12 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournaments, 17 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournaments, registered all-time program-best finishes in nine different sports and crowned 24 NCAA individual champions on his watch. ISU has won four of the last five Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series (and 11 titles overall), including this past year when it swept volleyball, football, wrestling, men’s basketball and women’s basketball matchups in the same year for the first time ever, and has finished among the nation’s Top 50 in the Learfield Directors’ Cup nine times, including a program-best 34th-place finish in 2009-10.
“Jamie Pollard’s bold vision has produced the most sustained period of academic and athletic excellence in Iowa State’s Athletics history, and Cyclones everywhere are incredibly grateful for his leadership, passion and dedication to our university,” said ISU President David Cook. “His leadership has established a culture that has elevated our athletics program academically and athletically to incredible heights while continuing to be a loyal advocate for our student-athletes, coaches and staff.
“Although our time working together was short, I have a keen understanding of what Jamie has meant to our university and community,” he added. “He leaves behind a tremendous foundation, culture and track-record of success. On behalf of all Iowa Staters, I want to thank Jamie for doing an exceptional job.”
Off the playing field, the Cyclones Serve program earned national accolades. In 2023, the program won the Fiesta Bowl’s Community Service Award, designed to recognize NACDA member institutions that make volunteerism and community service a way of life.
Foundational Support
Since the 2011-12 academic year, ISU is the nation’s only institution to average at least 50,000 fans at home football games (13-straight seasons), 12,000 fans at home men’s basketball games (15-straight years), and 9,000 fans at home women’s basketball games (17-straight seasons), excluding the COVID-impacted 2020-21 academic year.
Athletics fundraising has skyrocketed from just over $9M the year prior to Pollard’s arrival to $53M during the 2025-26 academic year, the most-ever raised by ISU Athletics in one year. He also helped secure a $25 million gift from the Reiman Family in 2013, the largest ever received by ISU Athletics.
Pollard’s administration has invested more than $400 million in new construction and facility renovations, impacting every Cyclone sport. One of the most impactful projects for all student-athletes was the $98 million Stark Performance Center, which opened in 2021, to house academic and student services as well as a dining and sports nutrition center.
To recognize the Pollards commitment to ISU Athletics, an anonymous alumni family committed $5 million last December to establish the Jamie and Ellen Pollard Endowed Director of Athletics. The endowment recognized the couple’s service, vision and enduring impact on Cyclone Athletics.
“The establishment of the Endowed Director of Athletics position is the most thoughtful, kind, and generous gesture anyone has ever done for me, and I can honestly say it made me cry – especially knowing the donors wanted Ellen’s name included,” Pollard said. “To think we have had that type of impact on anyone in the Cyclone Community is pretty overwhelming.”
A National Leader
National observers took notice of the athletics revival in Ames, as Pollard was honored as the Football Subdivision (FBS) Athletics Director of the Year by NACDA in both 2019 and 2023.
As a representative for Iowa State, Pollard served on several national committees and boards, including the prestigious NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee (2020-24). He is the only individual to serve as President of NACDA, the I-A Athletics Director’s Association, and the College Athletics Business Manager’s Association (CABMA).
“You cannot fulfill the obligations of being an effective athletics director without talented and dedicated coaches and staff, and incredible donors and fans,” said Pollard. “It also took the unwavering support of family. My wife, Ellen, has been the ultimate co-pilot on this amazing journey.
“I will forever be grateful to President Gregory Geoffroy, who first believed in me back in 2005, President Leath, President Wintersteen, and now President Cook,” he added. “Finally, I am indebted to Pat Richter and Barry Alvarez, the two Athletics Directors that I worked for at the University of Wisconsin, and Debbie Yow, my boss and mentor at Saint Louis University and the University of Maryland, as she modeled outstanding leadership, strategic decision making, outside of the box thinking, and a relentless pursuit of doing the right thing.”
It was Pollard’s vision to build CyTown, a 40-acre mixed-use entertainment district between Jack Trice Stadium and the Iowa State Center. Patterned after Titletown in Green Bay and the Power & Light District in Kansas City, CyTown will be the first-ever entertainment district built in the heart of a college athletics campus that will benefit the ISU community for decades to come.
A certified public accountant, Pollard is recognized as one of the college sports industry’s leaders in the financial arena. Earlier this year, he was invited by the Trump Administration to participate in a White House Roundtable on saving college sports.
Prior to his arrival at Iowa State, he served in various athletics administrative capacities at the University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland and Saint Louis University. He received a 2003 Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal “Top Forty Under 40” award, the first college administrator so honored.
Pollard was a NCAA national champion long-distance runner at UW-Oshkosh (and a member of the school’s Hall of Fame) and he channeled his competitive drive into an unrivaled athletics administrative career.
“It has been my privilege to engage with thousands of Cyclone fans over the years and develop life-long friendships with so many of them,” Pollard said. “There is nothing better than celebrating and enjoying the victories and championships with our fans. Although I’ll be leaving my office in the Jacobson Building, I will always be a loyal Cyclone for the rest of my life. Once a Cyclone, always a Cyclone.”
Jamie and his wife, Ellen, have four children: Thomas (wife Kami), Annie (husband Greg), Maggie (husband Jon) and James, and one grandson, Shepherd James.
At the direction of President Cook, a national search for Pollard’s successor will begin after listening sessions with representative stakeholders from across the ISU Athletics community are conducted. Further details about the search process will be released at a later date.
