AP FILE PHOTO - Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard speaks during a press conference Aug. 1, 2018, in Ames. Iowa State has announced a one-year, temporary pay reduction for coaches and certain staff to save more than $3 million. The school will also suspend bonuses for coaches for a year to save another $1 million.

AMES — With difficult times befalling college athletics during the COVID-19 pandemic, Iowa State and athletic director Jamie Pollard took a large and unprecedented step Wednesday in an attempt to limit the financial damage the school’s athletic department faces — with coaches and other staff cutting salary by 20 percent and forgoing bonuses.

In a letter sent to Iowa State fans and the student body, Pollard addressed the difficult times the department was in without any revenue from spring sports.

“The athletics department is funded almost entirely by external sources, which is different from the majority of departments on campus,” Pollard said. “President Wendy Wintersteen has empowered our department’s leadership team to implement several key actions that position our department to successfully address our upcoming financial challenges.”

Pollard said the department had discussions with the coaches and with administrators to determine the best course of action moving forward to counter the lost earnings from events like the NCAA Tournament in women’s basketball and the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament.

There are six initiatives Pollard detailed with the intention of saving Iowa State athletics more than $5 million, starting with a one-year 20 percent pay reduction for the school’s coaches as well as select staff. The group will forgo bonuses and save the school up to $3 million.

Pollard lauded the coaches and athletic department for their willingness to sacrifice salary to help the school.

“We have an incredible culture in our athletics department,” Pollard said. “It is grounded on our ability to strategize, execute and outwork the competition, while demonstrating great compassion, empathy and courage. These are challenging times, but we could not have better campus and state leadership, loyal and supportive external constituents, or colleagues in the athletics department, than what we have at Iowa State University.”

Other portions of the initiative include the department freezing season ticket prices in all sports and two Cyclone Club-related changes: an extension of the renewal deadline to May 29 and delay of a previously announced rise in Cyclone Club annual giving levels from January 2021 to January of 2022.

Pollard also said the school is going to provide different payment options for season-ticket holders — monthly, quarterly or semi-annually — in order to accommodate fans who may have had their income affected by COVID-19.

Thursday morning, in a teleconference with the press, Pollard had an analogy for what the upcoming months and the uncertainty of college football in the fall could mean for the NCAA’s member institutions.

“It’s either a winter blizzard that we hunker down for the weekend, it’s the farmer’s almanac predicting that we’re going to have a really hard winter or we’re facing the Ice Age,” Pollard said to reporters. “I think we’ve all figured out that this is bigger than a blizzard, that we’re shut down for the weekend. We’re probably in a phase right now that we’re in a long, hard winter, but if we can’t play football this fall it’s Ice Age time because there is nobody in our industry right now that could reasonably forecast a contingency plan for helping to get through not playing any football games.”

Football season is less than four full months away and with so much of Iowa State’s (and all major college athletic departments) revenue tied to the sport, this could be the start of a tense summer — not just in Ames but all over the college sports world.