A lot of Snyder article, but this one is really good.
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/01/3179429/wildcats-winning-by-following.htmlWildcats win by following the old fox Snyder
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
By SAM MELLINGER
Updated: 2011-10-02T08:12:37Z
JILL TOYOSHIBA/Kansas City Star
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Cassel makes a stand, which pays off for Chiefs Wildcats win by following the old fox Snyder Now is time for Royals to build a winner Cassel’s quarterback play isn’t inspiring hope Chiefs’ Haley and Pioli have to mesh during tense times Big 12 needs to say goodbye to Beebe Chiefs have done themselves no favors in building ill will Point finger at Pioli for Chiefs’ disastrous start Healthy bit of anger part of Chiefs coach Haley’s makeup Big 12 Conference has been a two-way street It’s not over for Chiefs, but it sure doesn’t look good The Chiefs' epic failure could linger As the season starts, the Chiefs are lacking arrows Sept. 11: The day of no games Dick Vitale crusades for the kids who inspire him Will Heartland exist in new college sports landscape? Zack Greinke loves life on a winning team in Milwaukee MANHATTAN, Kan. | Bill Snyder turns 72 this week, which means he is older than some of his players’ grandparents. The Kansas State football coach is a proudly unhip man born during World War II who now holds a job that requires endless hours and the ability to relate to kids born well after his hair turned silver.
The generation gap comes up often in conversation with Snyder, so you know he thinks about it. And you have to assume he knows this whole thing should logically have the shelf life of an afternoon nap, except here it is October, and K-State is undefeated and about to enter the national polls after a 36-35 win over No. 15 Baylor.
This was an afternoon of vintage Snyder, his team being outscored by a more talented team most of the day, but never out of it. That’s always the key with Snyder. He’s never out of it.
So a break here, linebacker Arthur Brown chasing down Heisman Trophy hopeful Robert Griffin III there, and his players are celebrating with a chant about getting crunk.
Snyder probably doesn’t know what “crunk†means, so he celebrated by talking about his value system.
Yes, this is an odd match.
“In our society today,†Snyder says, “18-, 19-year-old guys have a hard time buying into the things I buy into. Discipline, hard work, not giving up. Those values. That’s a hard sell for an 18-, 19-, 20-year-old youngster.
“And those guys are beginning to realize those things make a dramatic difference in how they prepare and play the game. If there’s something we’ve done that I think is beginning to take hold, maybe that’s it.â€
Snyder is being modest here, which is his way. But the magic is back. That’s obvious now. This is the best win of Snyder’s three-year encore at the school he dragged from national punchline to national relevancy during the 1990s.
Feels like it’s happening again.
What is impossible now?
A week ago, the Wildcats were 12-point underdogs against Miami and won by a few inches — a goal-line stand on the defense’s last play.
On Saturday, K-State was again the underdog against this young season’s most talked-about player and won by knocking down Griffin’s pass on the defense’s last play.
In between, the Wildcats lost perhaps their most physically talented player. They sometimes play 5-foot-7, 175-pound cornerback David Garrett at linebacker. None of it seems to matter.
Not as long as the old man is still in charge.
The team that beat Eastern Kentucky on a late touchdown four weeks ago is still undefeated, with consecutive wins against teams that will play in bowl games. Nobody thinks that sentence makes any sense, and it doesn’t, except that Snyder just might be the best coach in the country.
This college football season has been mostly about scandal and realignment, the ugly side of a beautiful sport on full display, but here in the Flint Hills of Kansas it is all about a man whose name is on the stadium and will someday be in the Hall of Fame pushing the limits of what most of us thought could be done.
“In the end,†says fullback Braden Wilson, “he’s always right.â€
So much of what Snyder talks about sounds hokey. He gives his players a poem, for instance, that helps them memorize what are known within the K-State program as “The 16 Commandments,†which include things like commitment and unselfishness and unity and lots of other things that lots of other coaches talk about.
For some reason, it all seems to stick here in a way that most coaches would give up their starting quarterback for.
Garrett says it’s because they don’t have a choice. When you sign with a school that named the stadium and the highway into town after the coach, you pretty much agree to take whatever he says as seriously as an IRS audit.
Wilson says it’s because they see him live what he preaches. Snyder can’t run with the fellas, so when practices get hot he’ll put on a full jumpsuit to sweat with the guys. Two springs ago, he tore knee ligaments when a player crashed into him during practice and never missed a day.
Snyder once admitted to hiring a hypnotist on the hope he could limit his need for sleep, and he remains, by all accounts, just as intense. He eats only twice a day, likes to stay in the back of team lines so he can watch everyone, and told reporters that if K-State lost last week at Miami because they were tired he’d have hung himself.
We assume he was kidding.
Tre Walker was born in 1992, after Snyder had already been at K-State four seasons, and says his coach closes the generation gap by talking in analogies and anecdotes that they all understand.
One that stuck with Walker is about toughness. Walker says Snyder tells a story about a 12-year-old boy who saw his friend get hit by a car. The friend was somehow stuck, so the boy rushed over and lifted the car off his friend. Walker says Snyder uses this story to drive home the point of being unafraid of failure or challenges, and of being willing to do whatever possible to help each other.
The story of a little boy lifting a car cannot be true, of course, but that’s clearly not what matters.
The point is that the 19-year-old linebacker listening to the 71-year-old coach believes it
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/01/3179429/wildcats-winning-by-following.html#ixzz1ZjvBHLH4
