CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, November 11, 2005 6:00 pm
MANHATTAN, Kan. — Scout Lanier grabs her scoop and carves out another gluttonous ball of the luscious-looking Purple Pride ice cream.
Lanier, a 21-year-old pre-nursing student at Kansas State University, says customers who frequent the campus dairy store inside Call Hall can’t get enough of this stuff.
Ah, but most of these folks also have an addiction that normally would make their craving for Purple Pride seem like nothing more than a harmless recreational habit. It’s called Wildcat football — served up in giant, sweet doses by genteel, mild-mannered coach Bill Snyder.
You probably know the story of how Snyder resurrected K-State’s dying program. It’s unparalleled in college football.
When he arrived in Manhattan, Kansas State had produced only one winning season since 1970 and was mired in a 27-game winless streak.
Snyder, who had worked as a relative unknown assistant while Hayden Fry was creating a magical turnaround at Iowa in the early ’80s, completely immersed himself in the new gig and by his third year had engineered a 7-4 season.
And the cream continued to rise.
There were four straight bowl games. Then, in six of seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, K-State won 11 games, capping that marvelous run with the school’s first conference championship since 1934.
Two years later, though, the Manhattan Miracle could use some tweaking, lest it fades back into a sustained period of also-ran status.
Last season, the Cats slipped to 4-7. And now, with two games to go in 2005, they’re 4-5 and in danger of missing the postseason in consecutive years for the first time since 1991-92.
A loss at Nebraska today would leave them with their first five-game losing streak since Snyder’s first squad in 1989 dropped its final seven.
But is all that enough to cause a major stir among those who have given the 66-year-old Snyder, now in his 17th season, their unquestioning love and support?
At the moment, Lanier is more interested in sneaking in some last-minute studies for a test she has later in the afternoon. But she is, after all, wearing a purple and white Wildcats football tank top that sports a Powercat logo designed by Snyder. And, for the first time in her three years at K-State, she’s going to the games.
So perhaps she has a good pulse on the subject?
“I mean, people are disappointed and they want them to be better,” Lanier said, “but I don’t think (the football team’s successes or failures are) ever going to cause a major downer for the community, because they’ve been here for so long.
“I think you need to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
And so that’s the feeling of the majority?
“Maybe I’m just being kind,” Lanier said, “but I would think so.”
She’s right.
Oh, if you look under enough rocks, you’ll find a few hissing bugs. But they’d just as soon scatter under the cover of anonymity.
In the Kansas State Collegian student paper is a section titled Campus Fourum. It’s a place where random thoughts that are phoned in appear — and the callers aren’t identified.
These are comments about the football team that ran in Tuesday’s edition:
I liked us better as a basketball school anyway.
I wish we had 21 other Victor Manns (a senior fullback), then we’d be a much better team.
Hey K-State football, I’m in St. Louis and I can smell you all the way over here.
I was glad to see (senior free safety) Jesse Tetuan at church this Sunday, because Lord knows, our team needs some divine help.
Bill Snyders’s first two years — no bowl games. The way the team is going — Bill Snyder’s last two years — no bowl games. Full circle, get rid of him. He’s done all he can do; get a new coach.
Lanier, who’s really not that into football, notes, “It’s not all bad. There are people who write in and defend him.”
Snyder probably doesn’t read the Collegian. But he can’t be so naive to think his popularity rating hasn’t slipped.
At Kansas State’s last home game, against Big 12 North Division-leading Colorado, there were nearly 7,000 empty seats.
Fewer people are interested in watching a team that in Big 12 games ranks last in the league in total offense, rushing and third-down conversions, and is in the bottom three in turnover margin and penalties.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever gone through back to back years like we’re going through right now, so I don’t really have anything to equate it to,” said Snyder, when asked if a season like this one and 2004 affects him differently from when he was younger and trying to earn his stripes. “It was a completely different environment before I got here, or in the early years here, so … It is not without its disappointment. It’s painful, sure.”
With players, confidence levels hinge largely on winning and losing.
With Snyder, in regard to being a confident leader, it’s not all that different.
“I think, particularly if you’ve been just in coaching for a considerable period of time, you have the joys and the pain and the suffering and the very positive things that take place. You’ve experienced all of it, and I think you gain because of that,” Snyder said. “You gain some resilience that normally is reserved for youth, which means that, OK, today’s not the best day in the world, tomorrow’s got a chance. And the next day’s got a chance, and so on.
“Coaches always talk about one game at a time and all we’re focused on is this ballgame, and it really is that way. I think most coaches really do buy into that principle, and when you do, then, even though as painful as not being successful can be, there is always that hope and that promise that the future holds something brighter. The difference is those young people probably get to that point a heck of a lot quicker than the rest of us.”
Even so, the Wildcats and their fans still need to lean heavily on the man behind the countless “In Bill We Trust” signs that make Snyder out to be more saint than football coach.
Jordy Nelson, for one, would follow wherever the no-nonsense Snyder led him. Nelson is a sophomore wide receiver, a recruited walk-on from nearby Riley, Kan., now on scholarship. He had no other NCAA Division I-A offers and would love nothing more than to deliver Snyder to a happier place.
“He put in a lot of time and effort into this program. The last couple years we’ve kind of stumbled and that’s not good for him, this university or this town,” Nelson said. “This town loves K-State football, so we need to finish out the year on the right foot. If we make a bowl game, that’ll help — emotionally and by the mindset. That’d be good for him.”
It might even stop some of the whispers regarding Snyder’s future at K-State.
Kevin Keitzman is host of Kansas City, Mo., radio station WHB’s popular sports-talk show “Between The Lines.” A K-State grad and frequent tailgater at Wildcat games, Keitzman believes it preposterous to think Snyder would leave on anything other than his own terms.
The way Keitzman sees it, the majority who are having their patience tested think K-State’s problems are mainly the result of unproductive assistants and that change on Snyder’s staff is forthcoming.
“There are very few fans who think, ‘Oh boy, Bill Snyder’s not a very good coach, we need to get him out of there,’” Keitzman said. “He’s not 96. He’s 66.”
At the same time, Keitzman is hoping the Wildcats’ coach also sees the big picture and starts giving some thought to putting his successor in place. It’d be a situation “where Snyder says ‘Here’s my guy, I’m not going to say when I’m retiring, but here’s my guy.’” Keitzman said.
The last thing Wildcat fans should want for Snyder is for his career to have a ending similar to Fry’s, the man who showed him miracles are possible.
While the Hall of Fame coach Fry will forever be revered by Iowa fans for ending a stretch of 19 straight nonwinning seasons and guiding the Hawkeyes to a glorious 20-year era that included three Big Ten titles and Rose Bowls, he retired in 1998 on the heels of a 3-8 season. And it took his successor, Kirk Ferentz, three years to dig out of that misery.
“You want him to turn it around,” Keitzman said of Snyder. “The good news is the (Big 12) North isn’t very good, so even if they finish last they’re unbelievable close to first.”
That’s kind of how redshirt freshman quarterback Allan Evridge looks at it, too.
“This team has a lot of tradition and a lot of things built from the hard work of Coach Snyder over the years. That’s why I came, and it’s really been hard for me to watch it over the year and a half that I’ve been here, watch it kind of fall,” Evridge said. “My job is to get it back going. … You want him to go out on top.”
Four games ago, Snyder elevated Evridge to a starting role. On Tuesday, someone asked whether the kid from Papillion-La Vista High was beginning to get worn down by the physical pounding he’d been taking in four losses.
“I don’t think so,” Snyder offered. “I think he’s a resilient young guy and I think he’s getting tougher every day — in a lot of different ways.”
And does that go for the coach, as well? Is he getting tougher in a lot of ways?
“Well, I’ve always been cantankerous, I guess,” Snyder said, “so I don’t know that that’s changed any.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.