Hampton native James Allan is the Director of Strategic Communications for the Iowa men’s basketball program.
I basically run the PR for the entire team,” Allan says. “If anybody needs to talk to any of the players or set anything up with Coach McCollum, I’m the point person and I’m basically the one that does everything on hawkeyesports.com for men’s basketball and help with social media. Basically, I have my hand in a little bit of everything with the program.”
Allan was there every step of the way on the team’s run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. As the primary media contact, Allan describes the days after the second round upset of Florida as a whirlwind.
“The media attention that we received after beating Florida and continuing on was crazy. I’m waking up and having so many emails, the Pat McAfee show, Barstool, all those guys are trying to get Coach McCollum or a player on, and it’s trying to balance their time with getting that publicity. So it was really a cool experience, and I’m looking forward to a lot more with Coach Mac.”
Allan reflects on the moment when Alvaro Folgueiras hit the game-winner against Florida, advancing Iowa to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1999.
“Playing essentially a perfect game and getting that shot from Al, it couldn’t have been scripted any better. I mean, the last time Iowa was in the Sweet 16, I was a junior in high school back at Hampton-Dumont. I’m conditioned during games to not really react because I’m sitting on the scorers table. But at that moment, when Al hit that shot, I was on the end of the bench because I was going to have to grab a player if something happened, and the fan in me kind of jumped out. You can see on the video I kind of let out a jump and a fist pump, and I’m usually pretty good at not doing that. But it was a whirlwind the last couple weeks, going from the Big Ten Tournament, then to Tampa and then Houston, but it’s why you do it.”
Allan is in his 19th season with the Hawkeyes, having previously served as a student assistant, assistant director and associate director. He was promoted to director of strategic communications in September 2024. Allan is the communications contact for men’s basketball and the secondary football contact. He also supervises the communications efforts for women’s golf and women’s tennis programs.
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