Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | spring 2006

SPRING 2006
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RAISING FUNDS WILL RAISE THE BAR FOR ISU ATHLETICS

Creating and communicating a new vision is job one for new Iowa State University Athletics Director Jamie Pollard, who arrived on campus last fall. In addition to managing 18 sports, Pollard spends much of his time meeting with ISU alumni and friends and sharing how the Iowa State athletics program can benefit from their support. He recently outlined some of his bold ideas for the future and how Cyclone fans can become more involved.

Q. How important is private support to the ISU Athletics Department?
It’s immensely important. For many years we’ve had wonderful continuing support from alumni, friends, and fans that’s given us a great base from which to grow the program and plan for the future. However, the Athletics Department does not receive any state tax dollars and the university is not in a position to infuse additional funds into athletics at this time. As a result, anything we are going to invest in growing the program must be generated by the department. There are two main ways to generate funds: revenues from athletic events (ticket sales, concessions, sponsorships) or through private fundraising (National Cyclone Club, naming opportunities, premium seating).

Q. Five years from now, where would you like the program to be?
Hopefully we will have created an environment where the thing to do is be seen at an Iowa State athletics event. We need to create an environment that is so uplifting and wonderful that fans have to come back for more. An environment that makes our alumni proud and allows them the opportunity to brag around the water cooler that they are ISU alumni. They’ll be able to take great pride in saying, “I went to Iowa State, and we just played in the Fiesta Bowl or the Final Four!”

Q. How far are we from realizing that vision at this point?
It is not going to happen overnight, but we are closer than people think. We have the base. We generate tremendous excitement. We had it against Colorado and Iowa in football and against Texas, Kansas, and Iowa in men’s basketball. However, we need to create that type of environment all the time. We need to get to the point where the issue isn’t how we are going to fill the stadium, but what are we going to tell the people who can’t get into the stadium. We need an environment where fans are afraid if they give up their 50-yard line seats they’re never going to get to the 50-yard line again. You have to have a great foundation to build a good house, and that’s what we need – an infrastructure. What none of us can do administratively is control what happens during the game. All we can control is everything up to the point the game starts. Then, if the team is successful, we need to have in place the foundation to take advantage of the team’s success.

Q. You say we already have a good foundation in place?
We have a really great group of supporters – we just need more of them. We have to continue to push ahead. We need to grow our financial resource base, sell more tickets, raise more funds, improve our facilities, and enhance our game-day environment.

Q. What are your plans for the sports facilities?
We’re developing a long-range facility master plan for the entire athletics program. We have simply outgrown our current athletics offices, and we have several significant facility challenges that must be addressed in the near future. We do have a great soccer facility, and the new football indoor facility is state of the art. In addition, the new Rod and Connie French Athletic Academic Center currently under construction will be awesome when it opens in 2007. Although Hilton Magic is absolutely wonderful, Hilton Coliseum has deferred maintenance beyond belief, and we do not have a practice court for the basketball and volleyball teams. As a result, if we’re waiting for something great to happen in basketball, the gap is getting wider and wider between what we have to offer our student-athletes and what our competition has available to its student-athletes. We also need to create more of an exciting environment on a permanent basis in Jack Trice Stadium, similar to Hilton Magic. In addition, we are in desperate need of new facilities for tennis, swimming, track, and gymnastics. Unfortunately, most of these facilities are not going to have a revenue component so we are going to have to generate significant private support if we want to achieve our goals.

Q. How important is the funding of scholarships to this vision?
Critical. Without the ability to offer athletics scholarships we would not be able to compete in the Big 12. The backbone to how we fund our annual athletics scholarship bill is the funds we raise through the National Cyclone Club (NCC). Those annual donations are primarily tied to an individual’s seating location. However, we also have a need to increase the size of our scholarship endowment so we are not forced to rely so heavily on the NCC for scholarship assistance. Our total scholarship endowment is close to $3 million; many of the institutions that we compete against have endowments 10 times that large.

Q. What is your Athletics Department budget? Where does the money come from?
Our total budget is about slightly less than $30 million. About 35 percent comes from ticket sales and 25 percent comes from the Big 12 conference – from television and other revenues. Another 15 percent comes from the National Cyclone Club. And the last 25 percent comes from many other areas, none greater than the other three. So it’s easy to see how important the support of loyal fans is to our success. Without them, and without the critical support of private donors, we couldn’t build the program.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like to say to alumni or donors?
What I’ve found so refreshing and inspiring is the genuine enthusiasm people have for Iowa State and the tremendous support they’ve been willing to give in the past. There is an exciting future ahead with untapped opportunities. We have the potential to accomplish milestones that will be far greater than anything we’ve ever had in this athletics program’s history. It won’t happen overnight, and it won’t be easy, but it can and will happen if we all believe in the vision.

About the Writer | Linda Montet ('88 MS journalism and mass communications) is a freelance writer for the ISU Foundation.