Orlin Wagner/Associated Press
Bill Snyder, talking to his team during a timeout, works closely with his son Sean, who is the associate head coach and director of football operations.
On the rare occasion when Bill Snyder would stop working and be able to spend time with his children Sean, Shannon and Meredith, he would tell them stories about his mother.
How she had raised him herself in their downtown, one-bedroom apartment in St. Joseph, Mo. How she had worked at a department store to be able to send him to college. How she had thrown herself — all 4 feet 9 inches — in front of the door when he tried to leave without permission.
Or how he had broken curfew when his divorced father bought him a convertible for his 16th birthday, and how she had told his father, "Either you come and get the car, or I'm going to drive it in the river."
Some weekends, he went to see his father three hours away, but he grew to be his mother's son: accountable, consistent, meticulous. Even obsessive. Every detail mattered. If any little thing was left undone, he came to believe, there would be consequences.
Now 73, Snyder, the patriarchal Kansas State football coach, has his Wildcats (6-0) ranked No. 4, wringing the most out of their talent as they travel to face No. 17 West Virginia on Saturday. It is what he does. Now in his 21st season in Manhattan, Kan., Snyder has rescued perhaps the nation's worst major-college program, retired, returned and has now done it again. His secret is in the details.
This he taught to his oldest child, Sean. So when Snyder retires again — the decision of when that happens will almost assuredly be his — he will recommend his son as his successor, he says.
But for some time, Sean had longed not to succeed his father, but simply to know him better. Snyder worked 16-hour days as a young coach under Hayden Fry at North Texas. That earned him a job at Iowa when Fry went there in 1979. That pace also earned Snyder a divorce. He had not been around much at home, sometimes waking up the children at night to play with them.
In their home's narrow hallway, he taught Sean how to carry a football and how to tackle.
Then at Iowa, Snyder mostly saw Sean and his sisters each summer. The first thing he asked about was school. He never yelled, never swore, never raised his voice, but if their grades had slipped, he checked their progress nightly come fall.
Those summers, Sean watched his father. He wondered: Why the act? Why the discipline? Why the work?
A soccer player, Sean joined his high school football team to punt, to make it to Iowa, to answer all of the whys.
"If you want to punt, then how are you going to be good at it?" Snyder asked, making his son plan, strategize and set goals. This was a lesson; Snyder raised his children the way he coached his players. Sean learned to punt on his own and earned a scholarship to Iowa in 1988.
"Coming from a divorced family, to me, to be whole and fill everything out, there was a lot of areas I needed to learn," Sean said, adding, "I needed to be around him to learn those things and understand a lot of previous years and put it together."
After Sean's freshman year, Kansas State interviewed his father for its head coaching position. No Division I team in the sport's history had lost more games. The Wildcats played "home" games at Oklahoma and Nebraska, where their opponents' fan bases would buy tickets and generate more revenue.
Steve Miller, then the athletic director, interviewed 18 other candidates, but only Snyder had a patient, long-term plan, and a calm, knowing presence.
He was hired, and in his first meeting with the team, addressing a group of players who had never played in a game Kansas State won, he explained his rules: no "ear screws" — his word for earrings — no foul language, no being late. At one point, a scholarship player stood up and left the room.
Snyder continued. They would wear blazers and ties on trips. They would practice Sundays at 8 a.m., so they should spend their Saturday evenings accordingly. They would act like gentlemen.
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