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Steve Malchow – Iowa State University (Retired)

CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award
CoSIDA 25-Year Award

by Ryan Workman – Iowa State, Athletic Communications Associate; Mike Green – Iowa State, Alumni Relations Specialist/Director of Traditions; Nick Joos – Iowa State Senior Associate AD/Communications

After 42 years of service in collegiate athletics, it’s only fitting that Steve Malchow earns the CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Malchow, who spent the final 16 years of his career at Iowa State, retired June 30, 2021. A 1983 graduate of Iowa, Malchow spent time at Iowa and Wisconsin before coming to Ames in 2005 to join Iowa State Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard’s staff. The Sioux City, Iowa, native worked with some of the best in the business during his time at the three institutions.
 

"Steve is one of the few native Iowans who worked in the athletics departments at Iowa, Wisconsin and Iowa State," Pollard said. "His professional experiences include working with many of the greatest Iowans from each of those schools, including Bump Elliott, Barry Alvarez, Hayden Fry, Dan Gable, Tom Davis, Dan McCarney, Cael Sanderson and Fred Hoiberg. That experience is unmatched by anyone in our state’s history."

When Alvarez took over a struggling Wisconsin football program in 1990, he handpicked Malchow to be his sports information director. This began Malchow’s successful 15-year run with the Badgers. Malchow, who was promoted to a Senior Associate Athletics Director for his final three years with the school, was at the center of Wisconsin's incredible turnaround in athletics, especially in football leading the program’s communications efforts.

Working alongside Alvarez, Malchow led the communication efforts in seven bowl games, including three Rose Bowl victories. Wisconsin had an historic 1999-2000 season. The football team won the Rose Bowl and Malchow was the man behind the scenes in the successful promotion of Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne.

“Steve was a key person around our football program and athletics department,” Alvarez said. “I trusted his advice and counsel when it came to media relations and promotion of Badger football. He was smart and strategic. And, of course, he did a masterful job of promoting our Heisman Trophy winner, Ron Dayne, during the 1999 season. When I think of Steve, I think of someone who I could rely on and trust.”

The men's basketball team capped off that year by earning a trip to the Final Four. Malchow was the SID of the Year by the National Football Foundation in 1999 for his efforts.

“The 1999-2000 academic year was arguably the most memorable for multiple reasons,” Malchow noted. “Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne became college football’s all-time leading rusher and won the Heisman Trophy. The Badgers then won the Rose Bowl and later that spring UW earned a trip to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four under the direction of Dick Bennett. A month or so after that, I married Barb (Butler), a former SID staffer at Alabama and Illinois.”

Malchow’s love of sports and introduction to the profession came at a young age. While his skills weren’t the best on the field, he found different ways to be around athletics.

“As the son of a sportswriter, I have been around athletics all my life,” Malchow added. “Since my athletics skills didn’t translate into playing, I quickly developed an interest in sports statistics and reporting. When I went to college, I wanted to earn some spending money and, eventually, landed as a student assistant in the Iowa SID Office.”

Being in the profession for more than 40 years, Malchow has seen plenty of changes as the profession evolved in many ways.

“As a young professional, it was the introduction of desktop publishing where our staff became in-house publications creators,” Malchow said. “Toward the middle of my career, we learned to deal with a 24-hour news cycle and the reality that you’re never really away from the office. As an administrator, we faced the explosion of social media where everyone had an opinion and the ability to publish it.

And, when I retired last summer, the shift was toward identifying ways to market student-athletes so they could monetize their personal profiles.”

Despite multiple changes over the years, Malchow still believes many of the qualities that make a good communications professional have remained the same.

“To any young person in any field, I would encourage them to be a great listener and observer,” Malchow said. “There are wonderful opportunities to learn from others through observation. Sometimes the tasks are not glamorous in our profession but accepting all assignments with an enthusiasm to do your best will position you for further opportunities.”

Most of Malchow’s career was spent in the communications field, and he kept in touch with those responsibilities once he moved into the administrative side of athletics. In addition to overseeing the communications offices, Malchow had other departments under his leadership at both Wisconsin and Iowa State.

At Iowa State, Malchow spearheaded ISU’s senior-level strategic communications and brand management, while supervising the department’s communications, marketing, digital media, creative services, information technology, trademark licensing and spirit squads/band units. Many of his initiatives enhanced the athletics brand and national outreach.

"Steve has been one of the key individuals responsible for much of our department's success over the past 16 years," noted Pollard. "He is truly an unsung hero who was directly responsible for several very successful branding initiatives including the I-State logo and Cyclones.tv. I often refer to Steve as my ‘moral compass’ because I knew when emotions were running high on challenging issues, he was always someone I could count on to provide calm, sound and timely feedback. He was a trusted colleague by everyone in our department.”
 
Malchow’s first experiences on senior staff came at Wisconsin, where he was able to work closely with Pollard.
 
“After a number of years as a sports information director, Coach Alvarez invited me to join his senior staff at Wisconsin,” Malchow noted. “It was a pivotal move in my career as it allowed me to interact on a regular basis with Jamie Pollard (then the Deputy Athletics Director at Wisconsin), who I was blessed to work with for more than 25 years. The biggest change with the move to administration was that multiple units were under my direction. As SIDs, we seem to be wired for detailed task completion and senior-level management is so much broader and you are charged with balancing more agendas.”

A big part of a storied career is the relationships built, some of which still exist for Malchow nearly a year into his retirement. Being able to build on those relationships is one of the biggest things Malchow misses about the day-to-day work in college athletics.

“The benefits of 40-plus years in college athletics are the relationships formed with colleagues, peers, coaches, student-athletes and news media,” Malchow said. “Those personal connections were often tied to specific events, games, memorable plays or championships and it’s those friendships that endure. It has been a storybook career for me and a blessing to work with so many incredible colleagues and talented young people in the last four decades at three different institutions. I have enjoyed a front row seat to watch hundreds of athletes pursue their personal potentials and mature into extraordinary adults.”

Malchow promoted a slew of student-athletes for national honors and received more than 40 citations from CoSIDA for excellence in publications in his professional career. He received the "Excellent Media Service" award by the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) in 1991 and was named "Outstanding Young American Business Leader" in 1994 and 1996.
 
Malchow acquired outstanding mentoring by some of the top leaders in collegiate athletics.
 
"I want to recognize former Iowa Sports Information Director George Wine for giving me my first full-time job and Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez for believing in me," Malchow said. "I especially want to thank Jamie Pollard for his friendship, trust and support and for giving me an opportunity to return to my home state and help build a positive brand for Cyclone Athletics."
 
Malchow stayed active throughout his career while serving on numerous committees. He was a lead presenter on "Strategic Thinking" at the 2016 NACDA Leadership Forum, a member of the Big 12 Public Relations Advisory Committee (2011-2021), chaired the Big Ten Sports Information Directors (1999-2000), and served on the Ames Convention and Visitor's Bureau and the NCAA Honors Committee (2016-19), serving as the NCAA Honors chair in his final year.
 
“I first met Steve at the CoSIDA Convention in Kansas City back in 1988, and we’ve been great friends ever since,” said Nick Joos, Senior Associate Athletics Director at Iowa State who was tabbed by Pollard to fill Malchow’s big shoes in Ames last July. “It was an honor for me to return to my alma mater and replace Steve. He’s had an incredible professional career and had such a positive impact on all of those he’s served. Yet, more than his dedicated service, he’s an even better person, and I’m grateful to have called him a friend for nearly 40 years. It’s individuals like Steve who make this profession special for so many.”