The Iowa State University athletics department will discontinue its women's gymnastics program and replace it with another sport that provides equal or additional participation opportunities for women, athletics director Jamie Pollard announced Tuesday.
In an announcement headlined 'Iowa State to Reimagine Women's Sports Lineup' posted on cyclones.com, Iowa State declared that "scholarship commitments will be honored for any women's gymnast who elects to remain at ISU to complete their degree program and they will continue to be afforded access to all departmental services available to Cyclone student-athletes through the duration of their undergraduate academic career."
The decision to discontinue women's gymnastics comes weeks after the Cyclones' season was canceled after four competitions due to what Pollard said were "unreconcilable differences" in the program, as reported by the Des Moines Register.
Cyclone gymnasts were informed of the decision by ISU associate athletics director Shamaree Brown in a meeting Tuesday morning, the Register reported, citing USA TODAY Sports Network sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
Iowa State gymnastics head coach Ashley Miles Greig, whose contract was set to expire June 30, and her three assistant coaches were told that their contracts would not be renewed.
Per the Register report by Danielle Lerner, Tommy Birch and Travis Hines, Tuesday's announcement ended weeks of speculation about the program's future that began when Iowa State canceled its gymnastics season Feb. 8. In a statement at the time, Brown said the decision was because the Cyclones did not have enough athletes available to compete. In a letter to the gymnastics team and alumni dated Feb. 17, Pollard wrote that the cancellation resulted from "a series of complex internal conflicts between individual teammates, coaching staff members, and parents," language repeated in Tuesday's announcement, per the Register.
Pollard said Iowa State would take the next several months to decide which women's sport would replace gymnastics so that the athletics department remains compliant with Title IX. “I also want to say, this is not a financial decision. This is a student-athlete experience decision," Pollard said in the video, as reported by the Register. "Adding another women’s sport will probably cost equal or more than what we’re already spending on the gymnastics program. This is about student-athlete experience.”
According to the Register, citing Iowa State’s annual financial report submitted to the NCAA for fiscal year 2025, the gymnastics program generated $287,392 in total operating revenues with $1.69 million in expenses, a gap of about $1.4 million. Iowa State allotted 14 scholarships to gymnastics. Football and men's basketball are the only Iowa State sports in which revenue exceeds spending, according to the Register.
Pollard said he asked his senior leadership team "to meet with those individuals in our department that work really closely with our gymnastics program and make a recommendation to me about what we should do going forward."
The leadership team recommended the school discontinue the gymnastics program, Pollard said in the video, and use those resources for a different women's sport. Pollard accepted the recommendation. "We are all on the same page," he said. "This is the right decision for our athletics program and for our student-athletes."
Several Cyclone gymnasts fell off the uneven bars during a Feb. 1 meet, their last of only four completed this season. Iowa State forfeited its next meet Feb. 6, with Miles Greig saying in a statement, "At this time, we do not have enough student-athletes available to safely field a team against West Virginia, and regrettably must cancel this competition."
Two days later, Brown met with gymnasts at Iowa State's on-campus practice gym to inform them their season would not continue, as reported by Lerner, Birch and Hines of the Register.
"Terrible that this is the result of the lack of support from Iowa State's Athletic Administration," redshirt freshman Samantha Schneider wrote on social media, as reported by the Register. "For the last 5 months, we have come forward as a team regarding (certain) situations and environment concerns and nothing has been done to protect us as athletes on this team. The gymnasts should NOT be blamed or be sharing any part of the responsibility for this decision being made."
Former Iowa State gymnast Shea Mattingly (nee Anderson) said she had been in contact with other former members of the team after Tuesday's announcement, the Register reported.
"We're all frustrated. We're all angry," Mattingly said. "That video made us all really mad, honestly. ... It places all the blame on these student-athletes whereas the administration's accountability in this, they hired these coaches that maybe it seems like they couldn't handle the program."
"I think we're still going to fight," Mattingly continued. "So we're going to send emails. We're going to call. We're going to do all we can, even though it seems his mind has been made up."
