When you see him on the sideline — so controlled, so focused — it is difficult to fathom the days when Kansas State coach Bill Snyder was anything but.
When you see his team is complete, disciplined, tough, fundamentally sound, it is almost impossible to think Snyder spent more time in the vice principal’s office at Lafayette High School in Saint Joseph, Mo., than a lot of his classmates.
“Coach Snyder?!’’ K-State quarterback Collin Klein said. “Really?’’
Really.
Soft-spoken, pensive, deliberate Bill Snyder, architect of arguably the greatest turnaround in college football history, was once a bit of rabble-rouser.
Until his mommy took his T-Bird away.
Snyder was 16 when his father, who had split from his mother, bought him a 1954 yellow Mercury Monterey, not a T-Bird, but certainly a head-turner in the small town of Saint Joseph.
He had it for two weeks.
His mother, Marionetta, who stood 4-foot-9 and weighed about 100 pounds, took her son by the proverbial earlobe and set him straight. She told her husband to take back the car.
“My mother is the toughest person I’ve ever known,’’ Snyder said. “I owe everything I am to her.’’
The good folks in Manhattan, Kansas, owe everything to Snyder when it comes to Wildcats football. Before he became the head coach — for the first time — in 1989, Kansas State was the first big-time college football program to lose 500 games (510 to precise). The Wildcats were on a 27-game losing streak.
Saturday night, Kansas State (6-0, 3-0 Big 12) seeks to improve on its No. 4 national ranking when it visits 13th-ranked West Virginia (5-1, 2-1) and Heisman Trophy candidate Geno Smith.
The Mountaineers are the Big 12’s sexy team. They have scored 40 or more points in four of six games. Smith has thrown 25 touchdown passes and no interceptions.
Kansas State is known for, geez, what is Kansas State known for?
“I would hope people think they see a tough, disciplined, unified team,’’ Klein said. “But we don’t concern ourselves with that because it’s something we can’t control.’’
Which brings us back to Snyder — career record: 165-83-1 — who marinates his players in a stew of 16 goals, all of which he says he learned from Marionetta.
They are as cliché as a Hallmark card, but Snyder harps on them with a sotto voce approach.
“He’s incredibly consistent,’’ Klein said. “He repeats the goals over and over and over again.’’
Snyder told reporters when he took the Kansas State job in 1989 the Wildcats could win six, seven games a year and go to a bowl game.
He instituted the first 12 goals (four more were added later, after the Wildcats began having success).
After going 1-10 his first season, the Wildcats went 9-3 in his fifth season and won their first bowl game. By the late 1990s, K-State was in the Cotton and Fiesta Bowls, posting six 11-win seasons.
“I was a high school coach who was always looking to advance as rapidly as I could,’’ Snyder said. “I had one foot in and one foot out. I was a horrible coach.’’
He decided to commit to his profession. He stayed at Iowa for nine years as an assistant to Hayden Fry.
Then Kansas State called. There was nowhere to go but up.
“There were players on my first team that did not know what it felt like to win a football game,’’ Snyder said. “We went 1-10 my first season and I was more convinced that Kansas State could have a successful program.’’
Snyder sent his assistant coaches all over the Midwest and West, recruiting players few other schools would even consider. He even recruited Juco players, though most coaches believe that’s a program killer.
Snyder found the ones with character and began his slow- drip method of instilling his 16 goals.
“We test them on it,’’ he said proudly.
By 2004, Snyder, who turned 73 earlier this month, tried to retire. He was talked into another year, which yielded a 5-6 season and a last-place finish in the division. He was done — until he watched his program go 17-20 is three seasons under Ron Prince. Snyder returned in 2009, went 10-3 last season, and just might have Kansas State playing for the national title this season.
“We’re chasing perfection but trying to catch excellence,’’ Klein said.
Imagine the parade they’d have for the Wildcats. Maybe they could even find a yellow 1954 Mercury Monterrey for Snyder.