The Coach of the Century

Before Bill Snyder graced Manhattan with his presence in 1989, Kansas State was an insult to abysmal.

The Wildcats had not won a game since October 18, 1986. They had not won a road game since October 26, 1985. They had not won consecutive games since September 24, 1983 and three consecutive games since the beginning of 1982. They had not played in a bowl since losing to Wisconsin on December 11, 1982 in the Independence Bowl, then the weakest of all the bowls. They had not won consecutive road games since October 27, 1979. They had not been ranked since November 14, 1970. They had not beaten a ranked team other than by forfeit since October 31, 1970. And they had not beaten a top ten team since October 3, 1970.And from 1937 on, only 6 times did they finish in the upper half of the Big VIII, never finishing higher than a tie for second in 1970. Their only conference title had come in 1934, and their only 10 win season had come in 1910.

And to add insult to injury, Kansas State was 5-5 against non-Division 1-A teams from 1980 to 1988. Add a loss in Snyder’s first season and you get a losing decade against such teams.

Suffice it to say, Snyder did more than build Kansas State; he birthed it.

But he enters what will be his final game in the 17-year emotional rollercoaster that is the most astonishing accomplishment since Henry V won at Agincourt in 1415 against four to five times as many men that were well rested and fed in their home land.

When he was named as 32nd head coach in KSU history, Kansas State had been dubbed the worst college football program in the nation. Sports Illustrated went as far as to say that it was not just the worst then, but that the program could never be repaired. The athletic department was contemplating dropping out of the Big VIII and into 1-AA to save money.

“I thought he was crazy,” said Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, who worked under the legend Hayden Fry with Snyder in 1988. “It was a bad football environment.”

The school could not even afford to pay $100,000 to build facilities in 1989.

Yet, by 1991 Kansas State was 7-4, the first winning season since 1982 and the first seven win season since 1954. That year the Wildcats also won their first road game in six years and won consecutive road games for the first time in 12 years. They also won three in a row for the first time in nine years. And in 1993, Snyder led his team to a 9-2-1 record, the most wins since 1910. They also started 5-0 for the first time since 1931, became ranked and beat a ranked team for the first time since 1970. In December, they were invited to only their second bowl game in school history. Then they were voted #20 in the final AP poll, the first time that Kansas State had finished ranked. Kansas State was ranked for the final seven weeks, or three more than they had been ranked in the program’s history before Snyder.

In 1998, Snyder’s team came within a quarter of winning the Big XII championship and advancing to the first ever BCS National Title game. And from 1997-2003, the team amassed 11 wins six times, while going bowling all seven, the final seven of the remarkable streak of 11 consecutive postseason appearances. They played in the Big XII title game three times during this stretch.

While the accomplishments kept building, so did the awards. He won Big VIII or Big XII Coach of the Year awards seven times and National Coach of the Year awards three times, each one deserving. It would have been blasphemy not to recognize Snyder in such a way.

But this Saturday, the creator, no, the God of Kansas State football will coach his final game. Snyder retired Monday, citing that he needed to spend more time with his family.

Snyder turned boys into young men for seventeen years, while he turned K-State into a college football powerhouse without ever getting the best of men in the recruiting wars. Now he turns to his family in hopes of doing the same, even if his children are all grown up.

“I’ve not been the kind of father that I should have been, and the kind of husband,” he said. But he has been a father to hundreds of young adults that have walked through his office doors over the past couple of decades.

So I wish good luck to “the coach of the Century,” as Barry Switzer put it. He has earned retirement as much, if not more than any other coach on the planet.

And while a search will start after the season concludes Saturday with only the fifth losing season since 1988, there will be no one who can replace Bill Snyder. He is unique. He is the Miracle in Manhattan.

Sean Keeler wrote, “As resurrections go, Bill Snyder’s job at Kansas State was a rung above Barry Alvarez and a few notches below Doctor Frankenstein.”

I disagree. Not even Mary Shelley could have dreamt this one up.

“After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.”

And there’s the difference: Doctor Frankenstein at least had the matter to start with. Snyder had to create even that.

As Brian Vander Ark of The Verve Pipe sang, “If time were a second, if life were a moment that once stood still, I’d leave it untattered, untouched.” But everyone moves on, and now Kansas State and Bill Snyder will have to do so too.

It’s been one heck of a ride. Too bad Kansas State was too lousy to ever be revived.