James Yizar retires after 40-year ISU career

Mom knows best.

If you need proof, exhibit A is Dr. James H. Yizar Jr., known to everyone by his childhood nickname “Byrd,” who retired Aug. 15 from a distinguished 40-year academic career at Idaho State University.

Yizar had more ISU titles than there are in Burke’s Peerage, but they had two things in common. They usually included the word dean or director, and they were always geared toward promoting students’ academic and personal well-being.

A product of Belmont High School in Los Angeles, Yizar was a highly-regarded prep sprinter and a target of persistent recruiting by ISU.

“ISU kept sending mail and calling and my Mom said we should check out this place,” Yizar recalled. On his campus recruiting visit, “Mom came with me and visited with (head coach) Bob Beeten and (assistant coach) Pat Williams and Mom told me I was going to sign my letter of intent to come here. Boys need to do what their Mom tells them to do. She knew this was where I needed to be.”

Mom was Gladys E. Yizar, an elementary school teacher. Teaching is a recurring theme in Yizar lore, or, as James says, it’s “the family business.” Dad James H. Yizar Sr. was a postmaster.

Yizar arrived in Pocatello for his freshman year in August 1975, with an already much-used nickname. “I was always fast and played team sports. In football when I was tackled I took off and gained extra yards and people in the stands said he’s flying like a bird,” he said.

Yizar is African-American and grew up in a vibrant mostly-Black community, so the transition to heavily white ISU and Pocatello was a significant one.

“It was quite an adjustment,” he said. “It was different coming from a Black community where in a store, everyone, customers and managers, looked like me. Here in a store, I’m the only one who looks like me. In class, I was the only one who looked like me. Feeling comfortable, connected, like I belong, that environmental adjustment took a couple of semesters.”

An old saying is we make plans and God laughs. Yizar had post-graduation plans that didn’t include ISU.

“Education is the family occupation but I was a rebel and wanted to do other things,” he said. “But graduation was paramount. I had to do that. When I got back to L.A., I couldn’t just adjust smoothly to the teaching expectations and was looking at going back to school and get a master’s degree to be a principal.”

He returned to ISU to work for TRIO Special Services, a federally-funded program to work with low-income, first-generation students and students with disabilities to complete their college degrees.

He worked for the TRIO Upward Bound program while in school earning his undergraduate degree.

“It was kind of like work study, but in the summer, working as tutor and chaperone and living in dorms,” he said. “There was an employee discount for taking classes so that’s why I looked at grad school at ISU and working with the TRIO program. A full-time position opened in TRIO. I could get a master’s fairly cheap, then go back to L.A. I got the position so I could get the M.A. and planned to stay here a couple of years. I’ve been here ever since.”

He had mentors in TRIO and at the institution who eased his transition into academics. And he had mentors in helping a Black man adjust to life in a predominantly white community.

“I want people to know how tough it can be for an African-American to live and work in an environment with people who don’t look like them but it’s not impossible for them to be successful,” he said. “Mentors like Mr. Leonard ‘Buddy’ Frazier, Mr. Ram Eddings, Mr. Herb Williams, Mr. ‘Easy Ed’ Thompson were constantly in my ear sharing information on how to do things.”

Yizar has three college degrees, all from Idaho State: Bachelor’s in Education, 1983; Master’s in Counseling, 1990; and Doctor of Education, 2010. He’s used all he learned in academics, student affairs and athletics plus the lessons in life he acquired from mentors and on his own to ease students’ transitions in academics and the college environment. His occupational titles reflect his concerns for the students.

He was TRIO counselor/learning specialist; assistant TRIO, Upward Bound and Educational Talent Search program director; TRIO director/assistant dean of students; associate dean of students/director of Diversity Inclusion/New Student Orientation director; associate director Student Success Center (Academic Affairs)/assistant athletic director for Student Support; and back to associate director Student Success Center.

“I’ve had 12 university offices,” he said. That’s different physical locations of his office — a lot of moving.

“When I was assistant dean of students, I was the conflict resolution individual, the problem solver who went into situations no one else wanted,” Yizar said. “The student-athletes called me the Black fireman because whenever they saw me I was coming to put out a fire and they told me they didn’t do it.”

He continued, “I helped students of color feel comfortable in a predominately white school environment so they could learn to navigate those situations and continue in a university environment. A lot of athletes from the late ‘90s and early 2000s thanked me and said they couldn’t have made it without me. It was very rewarding — made me feel ‘I guess I did something right in those 40-plus years.’”

The ISU Sports Hall of Fame believed that Yizar did more than “something right.” He was awarded membership in the hall and received its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.

James and Joanna Yizar married and started a family that continued the family business in Pocatello. They’ve been together for 42 years. Joanna is a dietitian at the Idaho Kidney Center. Their daughters, Jamiece Yizar-Thomas (age 30) and Jaelyn (age 27), were both soccer stars at the College of Idaho and Highland High School graduates and are now elementary school teachers. Jamiece and husband Trevor recently presented Joanna and James with their first grandchild.

“Like my Mother saw, my destiny was here,” James said. “Roads are not always straight or smooth, but it was the road I chose and if I had to do it all over again, I’d choose Idaho State University and the Pocatello community.”