Bill Snyder: A Story of a Program That Went From Hapless and Hopeless, to the Hall of Fame

Bill Snyder: A Story of a Program That Went From Hapless and Hopeless, to the Hall of Fame

In a room full of journalists in front of a black Big 12 themed background, the nation’s oldest ringleader of the football field took his seat at the podium, and made a decision that is shocking to some, however at the same time it may be just another year in the history books for one of this sports’ legendary figures.

Bill Snyder announced Monday just hours before the game’s biggest spectacle kicks off in Glendale, Arizona that he will return for his 25th season at the helm as Kansas State’s head football coach.

“I had a chance to visit with my family, and they collectively wanted me to do what I wanted to do and none were against my decision to return as long as I am having a positive impact on the young people in our program, my health is in order and as long as I am wanted by the University and the wonderful Kansas State fan base.”

I don’t think John Currie had a very difficult time hearing that. The wildcats on the field this year were mediocre at best, and honestly didn’t look like a .500 football team at all in many games they played. Snyder made this team bowl eligible. Put just about any other coach on that sideline in the heart of Kansas and you’re maybe looking at a team that could’ve very well ended up with three or four wins if they were lucky. Instead, the journey lead them to the AutoZone Liberty Bowl against Arkansas.

And what a journey it’s been for the ultimate wise man of college football. 

Bill Snyder was born on October 7th, 1939 in Saint Joseph, Missouri, ironically enough the eight largest city in a state that borders and rivals his university and program. Or at least used to, before the Tigers from Colombia made the move to the SEC in 2012. 

The wizard from Saint Joseph began as an assistant head coach in 1962 for Gallatin High School in Missouri. Then ran away to California for two years with the same job title, before making the jump to the collegiate level in 1966 as a graduate assistant at USC. The bouncing around year after year continued the following season as he knocked himself back down into the high school ranks for over a decade at three different schools in California. Could you imagine? Telling your kids (maybe even grandkids, who knows) that the man in purple on TV coached you in High School? It’s pretty surreal.

Snyder found an assistant gig at North Texas from 1976 to 1978 under a fellow hall-of-famer Hayden Fry before they both made the move up north as Snyder was hitting his final stepping stone to the summit of the sports’ coaching profession as the Quarterbacks coach and Offensive Coordinator at Iowa for twelve seasons. Before Snyder landed in Ames the Hawkeyes hadn’t had a winning season in eighteen years. By the time he was finished, Iowa won two conference titles during his tenure. 

Kansas State came knocking for the much younger coach from the mid-sized city in northwest Missouri, and they were quite desperate for a spark. The program had never finished in the top twenty five in it’s school history, and hadn’t had any kind of success in decades. K state had only one bowl game under it’s pedigree, and hadn’t had a coach with a winning record at the school since Pappy Waldorf in 1934! Say that at your next water cooler conversation and you’ll be the smartest guy around the office. That’s fifty five years, fourteen coaching changes, and a .217 winning percentage. Not to mention the program was coming off the infamous Stan Parrish era, a three year nightmare that saw the Wildcats go 2-30-1, and once Snyder was hired, the program had gone 27 games, a span that lasted over two seasons, without a single win. Sports Illustrated labeled this program as “the most hapless team”. An entire article dedicated simply to the futility of a team that couldn’t do anything at all to win games.

So it wasn’t going to be an easy turnaround for Bill Snyder When he took over in 1989. Once he did get through his first season his team went 1-10 overall and didn’t win a game in conference play. 

It happened real quick.

Little by little the numbers began to improve. It went from 1-10, to 5-6, to 7-4, and then two years after that a nine win season and the second bowl appearance in school history. That bowl appearance surely wouldn’t be the last one either. Ten years after the article in SI publicly shunned the program, they were 11-0 and number one in the rankings, they also posted eleven bowl games in a row including two BCS bowl games and even the schools first conference championship in 2003 in a 35-7 drubbing of heavily favored Oklahoma.

That turnaround that wasn’t supposed to be easy right?

He took off running and never looked back, Snyder has had his eyes and heart for only one job since he was hired in November of 1988.

Snyder stuck around until 2005, retired, came back after a four year absence, and you can see why in every game he coaches. The same enthusiasm for the game, the same passion for helping the kids, the same burning fire to win. It may be on a smaller scale due to father time, but the heart in the man will never stop beating for the sport and school he loves.

He left a foundation that himself and Hayden Fry had built in Ames to build a foundation of his own in Manhattan. In twenty four seasons Snyder is 193-101-1, sporting the fourth most wins among active head coaches behind only Brian Kelly of Notre Dame, Dennis Franchione of Texas State, and Nick Saban of Alabama. 

Bill Snyder has reinvented the term “commitment” in the world of of this sport. Coaches lobby for bigger jobs, bigger paychecks, and bigger opportunities when considering plans for the season to come. Jobs as a head coach of a football team have become one year contracts in many markets, and the coaching carousel spins recklessly and sometimes out of control every single year on the professional and collegiate level.

In the same week that the coach has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, he decides to give it another run. This run is another difficult looking one, with uncertainty at quarterback and a date with trying to slow down Christian McCaffrey in their first game, this will be a challenging off season for Snyder. 

But who’s going to count this guy out?

Certainly not me.

Follow Davidson Baker on twitter at @Davidsonbaker_