Per 247

Iowa State Media Relations

Ames, Iowa – A $5M gift from the Kirk and Rae Malcolm family, coupled with today’s initial approval from the Iowa Board of Regents, will allow Iowa State’s Department of Athletics to move forward with the planning of a transformational project for its wrestling and track & field programs, Cyclone Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard announced.

“We are grateful for the Malcolm family’s generosity in supporting our student-athletes’ quest for academic and athletic excellence, and for the Board of Regents allowing us to advance our planning for this important project,” Pollard said. “Iowa State is fortunate to have tremendous individuals leading our wrestling and track programs in Kevin Dresser and Jeremy Sudbury, and this transformational gift from the Malcolm family was given in large part because of the donor’s belief in the vision our coaches have cast for their programs.”

The proposed project, which will be named in honor of the Malcolm family, will renovate approximately 45,000-square feet of existing space within in the Lied Recreation Athletic Center and construct approximately 16,000-square feet of new space with an addition to the building’s Southeast corner. The project will expand and collocate facilities used by the wrestling and track programs to include new weight rooms, locker rooms, team lounges, sports medicine areas, meeting areas and coaches locker rooms. It will also create a separate entrance to the facility for use by Cyclone student athletes, athletics department staff, and visitors to the wrestling and track programs.

“The state-of-the-art Malcolm Performance Center will touch the lives of more than 100 of our student-athletes on a daily basis and greatly enhance their Cyclone experience,” Pollard said. “The Lied Recreation Athletic Center has served our student-athletes well, however, this renovation and new addition will allow our wrestling and track teams to remain competitive nationally.”

Currently, about two-thirds of the 236,000-square foot Lied Recreation Athletic Center is used by ISU’s Department of Recreation Services while athletics utilizes the remaining space. As part of the new project, the departments will exchange some space to improve adjacencies for both departments. The total space currently allocated to ISU’s Department of Recreation Services will not decrease due to the project.

Kirk Malcolm earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State in 1968, and is a partner in Shepard International, Inc. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta as an undergraduate, and supports ISU’s College of Engineering through the Malcolm Family Scholarship, which honors students within the college with a preference given to residents of Iowa’s Northwest corner. In addition, they have also supported the Marston Hall renovation, naming the Malcolm Conference Room on the main ground floor hallway.

An ISU Foundation Governor Emeritus, Kirk is a lifetime member of the Iowa State University Alumni Association. He and his wife, Rae have been married for 51 years, and have three children and six grandchildren.

The project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2025 and will cost between $20-25M, which will be paid through additional fundraising and athletic department revenues.

“While we still have some work to do before getting this project underway, the momentum generated from the Malcolm’s generous gift will go a long way toward getting us to the finish line, and making a positive impact on our student-athletes in these sports,” Pollard said.

LINK TO RENDERINGS

Practical Move has scratched and we have a Cyclone in the Derby. Go Cyclones!

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There's some smoke floating around the Twitterverse that the Hawkeye football program has some gambling issues about to surface. Waiting for the "that's why our offense was so bad".

I'll take the 6 predicted wins for the Cyclones this fall. I also think one of the wins will be against the Shorthorns on a cold November night in Ames.🏈🌪️🏈

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Huggins just made a big mistake on a Cincinnati talk radio station. I’d expect he will be let go by West Virginia.

86 years old. 2 National Championships & a half dozen Final Fours at Louisville.

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Fast-rising 2024 STL DE talks Iowa State offer

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Another right wing conspiracy theory.

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Up front, and for the record, I am Sgt. Schultz on this issue. I know nothing.

I do have some assumptions and guesses, some of which will be more accurate than others.

First, We are not going to stay at the New 12 (my designation). We may add, we may lose, we may do both. The results may be good or bad. Time will tell.

Second, money (revenue) will drive the changes. Media Revenues, of course, but, eventually it may also include game day and booster Revenue. [Ex: will doing x for Media Revenue negatively impact the game day experience and resulting revenue long term?]

Third, the Big Ten and SEC are the clear drivers of this effort. How long will they remain at 16 teams? If (when) they expand again where will they target?

The next tier of P5 Conferences are ACC, Big 12, and PAC 10. I renamed the Pac 10 to reflect it's known status at the end of next year.

Currently, the ACC has 14 P5 schools, a football affiliation wit ND, and a suffocating TV deal. The 2cConference Powerhouses, Clemson and FSU, apparently want out. The PAC 10 has 10 P5 schools, no real bell weathers, and no media interest, apparently. Possibly looking to add Mountain West teams. The Big 12 has 8 P5 teams, 4 new P5 teams with strong FB creds and 3 of the 4 with good to great FB creds.

Here is where it gets tricky. We are assuming that teams from the B1G and SEC are looking at teams from the ACC and PAC 10. It makes sense. Clemson, FSU, UNC, UVA, UW, ORE, ND, Duke, Stanford (for example) have the combination of athletic prowess and AAU status (for B1G purposes) to get looks by one or the other. All of which leaves (potentially) 2 weakened Conferences that the Big 12 could pick off key, advantageous members.

It also leaves 2 Conferences in search of new members for survival, both of which would have only P5 teams as members. They could aggressively seek P5 schools (as opposed to new P5 schools) or some combination of both. I am concerned that we get too far over our skis, adding teams like SDSU and/or UNLV and/or San Jose State and basketball components like Gonzaga and Villanova, for example. Let's say, for sake of discussion, we add SDSU and UNLV for football and Gonzaga and Villinova for Basketball only. Then, in 6 years, the ACC loses FSU and Clemson to the SEC and UNC and UVA to the B1G while the PAC loses UW and ORE to the B1G.

My question would be if we are more likely to be in position to poach or to be poached? The SEC might be inclined to look at Football Centric Schools like OSU, KSU, or WVU. The Surviving ACC might look at Basketball Schools like Kansas, WVU, Iowa State.

My preference, I think, would be for the core Big 12 schools (ISU, KU, KSU, OSU) the four Texas Schools (Tech, Baylor, TCU, Houston) find the best 8 ACC remaining schools, including Cincinnati and UCF, to form a very strong football and basketball Conference over only 2 time zones. Now obviously that flies in the face of Yormark's attempts to 4-time zone the Conference and build a basketball juggernaut. My fear is it will dilute our football status that we end up getting poached and that means uncertainty for ISU.

I would hope our targets would be current P5 for the time being. If it all blows apart, it would not, imo, to have6-8 of the most recent P5 additions in your 16 or so teams.

Meetings must not be going well, rumor has it they are months away from a new media deal

We take on Kansas in the final game of the regular season. Looking for a sweep and I believe a 4 seed in the conference tournament.

I know there can never be a winner, but it might be fun to take nominations for the best song and best performance in musical history. I'll offer as the first nomination this video of Procol Harum performing A Whiter Shade of Pale with the Danish National Concert Orchestra and choir at Ledreborg Castle, Denmark in August 2006. An absolutely magnificent performance of one of the greatest songs ever recorded. I wish it was in HD, but the only HD version I found didn't have the orchestra opening, which is a major part of the performance.

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Apparently Albaugh has a favorite running this year, and TJ is a “longtime family friend….”

Peterson: A Kentucky Derby win would be a dream come true for Ankeny’s Dennis Albaugh

This is usually the time of year when my excitement for football ramps up. It's just after the spring game, we've heard reports from camp, coaches talking about progress and players, we've seen a bit of some newcomers, watched short videos on Youtube or twitter, recruiting is going full bore and we're getting some great players looking at the program and even committing that all combine to get you excited for the upcoming season. It happened last year even in what turned out to be a disappointing season. I was all hyped up over our new and improved WR room with two veterans coming back (Hutchinson, Noel) and a newcomer speedster (Stanley) joining them who seemed to be the one missing ingredient who could blow the top off the coverage and make the other two even better. And on top of that, we had an exciting young QB with a big arm throwing to them. The defense promised to be even more stellar than usual.

But I got none of that going for me this year. The reports from camp only depressed me. There were no exciting newcomers to talk about (the only one briefly mentioned was Quaron Adams getting snaps with the ones from the slot in the spring game). Yes, they talked up the O-line, but when haven't they? They always seem to turn out pretty pedestrian, no matter how much they hype them. I never saw any great plays in videos, the spring game was a disappointment in that it wasn't really a "game" and there were no real highlight reel plays, no flashy new (or old) RB moments. Pedestrian is the word that comes to mind again.

Recruiting has been a disappointment to me thus far. It seems that with a few exceptions, the quality of players looking at the program and committing is down this year. I am excited about the RB from Oklahoma, but does anyone really think he's going to choose us over OU?

I'm usually the ultimate optimist when it comes to our football prospects. But not this year. I think the defense will be OK, but not as good as last year, but I don't anticipate any improvement at all in the offense after we lost our best weapon. I think we'll have a tough time equaling last year's dismal record. I don't know, talk me out of it. Why should I be optimistic?

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New OL commit Holt digs deep into Saturday decision

I hadn't counted on him being back anyway, but I guess Sean Shaw wants to take his Covid year...and he'll do it elsewhere.

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Eleven offers and FutureCast & FanFutureCast has him a Hawkeye.

Hawkeye Homers Miller and Condon are at full speed with their Squawk hype this morning.
Hype summary:
With the new addition of the former Buckeye receiver....
Will be one of the best offenses in Big 10 West....
Great passing attack in place. .
Impressive tight ends.....
Top 20 defense......
Blah, Blah, Blah, blah, blah

But they are flabbergasted that FanDuel favors the Cyclones by 1 1/2 pts

I'd love it to be a prelude and repeat of the 2005 CyHawk game. No. 8 Suckeyes humbled 28-3 at Jack Trice. That was a beautiful Cyclone win.

Tennis is underway in a second round matchup against #22 Wisconsin. Live Stats

Softball is about to take the field against Kansas. You can follow that on ESPN+ at 2:00pm.