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Pete Kotz in the Dallas Observer has written a well-researched and important article. You can see the original or the printer-friendly version. Kotz points out what I've seen for years. There are so many people with their hands in the cookie jar that only the government or the NCAA will ever straighten out this mess. Lots of schools are suffering a net loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the highly-debatable prestige of playing in a bowl game, many of which the average American couldn't name to save their lives. How are universities being lured into this?
This article doesn't address the unfair good-old-boy selection process for the most prestigious bowls; e.g., the Sugar Bowl's snubbing of Kansas State this fall. I don't advocate a playoff system, but I do believe the NCAA could rent stadiums in nice locations and have its own bowl system, guiding a much greater percentage of the bowl jackpots to the universities who play in them.
Mark Janssen has a must-read interview with Jacob Pullen in today's Kansas State Sports Blog.
Since I live about 150 feet from the groundbreaking site, I moseyed over there to take pictures. The indoor activities were "invitation only," but the dignitaries came outside for five minutes to dig some dirt that had already been plowed. I made a modest little photo gallery.
J. Brady McCollough has a tremendous story in the Kansas City Star related to Tex Winter's induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame today, and his place in K-State history. Today, Sam Mellinger has How Frank Martin won over Kansas State. (Thanks a lot, Brady and Sam, for blabbing all our trade secrets! He he.
That's right. After four games, KU football has improved in the Big 12 from 159-24 to 187-40. We're proud of you, Squawks! Here's what one of their fans wrote: "KU has officially become the perennial cellar dweller of the Big 12 AGAIN. Our program is now the worst college football program in the Big 12 by a LARGE margin. Heck, we may currently own one of the worst football programs in all of Division 1. Our homecoming game today was effectively a funeral march for the football program. If we keep Gill as our head coach, we might as well bulldoze down Memorial Stadium and erect a headstone for the program tomorrow."
K-State Sports has a new Web site to introduce plans for the project, and request donations. It appears that $12,000,000 of the needed $20,000,000 has been pledged, with $15,000,000 needed to proceed. Here's a story on the facility from the Kansas City Star.
Mark Fagan in the Lawrence Journal-World reports that KU currently has $93.67 million in athletics department debt. It sounds as if they sure could have used that $1,000,000 that was embezzled. Silly birds!
If anyone still wants to think about the $3,200,000 secret Ron Prince buyout, my posts on that topic are archived here.
"People talk about pressure of beating KU. That's nothing compared to knowing you have to cook a $17,000 meal," Frank Martin observed at the annual Powercat Auction tonight. The auction was such a hit that Frank offered to auction a second and third home-cooked Cuban meal to two other $17,000 bidders.
Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports writes this time about our coach. Here's his column. You don't want to miss it, even though he's reviewing for America what we already know.
Jacob Pullen makes 34 points to lead the Cats to victory in Oklahoma City over a very fine Brigham Young team. The mythical poultry will have about eight months to peck on today's events.
 Good stuff to read keeps rolling in, so here we go:
K-State Sports Information has set up 2010 NCAA Tournament Central. It's billed as everything you need to know. As usual, the NCAA has produced a lame Web site to cover the men's tournament. While everyone and his brother has a bracket out, the NCAA can't manage to be first to release it. For example... less than an hour after the selection show ended, look at all these other sites that have detailed tournament information. Enough whining. Let's go win some games. The all-time record of 25 wins is now history. Edit: HDSportsguide.com has complete information about CBS coverage of the tournament. This link seems to be CBS's main page for their coverage. Also, don't miss CBS's K-State Confidential.
I've felt extremely proud to have Denis on our team, and I love his speed. Don't miss this story.
One other thing (swiping a paragraph from Sports Information): Frank Martin was named today the Big 12 Coach of the Year by both the Associated Press and the league's coaches. Martin has K-State off to its best start since the 1958-59 season, while the current 24 victories and 11 conference wins are the most for the Wildcats in the Big 12 era and most since the 1987-88 squad won a school-record 25 games. The team earned its first Top 5 ranking in nearly 50 years last Monday when it rose to No. 5 in each poll. It marked the fifth straight Top 10 ranking this season, including the fourth in both major polls. He has guided the school to four wins over Top 25 teams, which is the most-ever by K-State in a regular season, including just its third-ever over a No. 1 team and first since 1994 with its 71-62 victory over Texas on Jan. 18.
Our pal Jason Whitlock has a nice commentary on the Cats' victory over Missouri today. Jason says, "K-State fans, take a bow. You kept the Wildcats' title hopes alive for at least four more days, and you pretty much ensured that Martin will be conference coach of the year and the favorite for national coach of the year."
On March 7, 1962, K-State was ranked #3 in the AP poll. Now, almost 48 years later, we've come in at #6 in the poll released today. Our coaches and players have worked very hard for this, and for the most part, the fans have done a great job this season. The next month is going to be an amazing time.
The Big 12 Conference has named senior guard Denis Clemente the Player of the Week. The conference says, "Clemente averaged 26.5 points and 4.0 assists as Kansas State recorded road victories at Nebraska (76-57) and Iowa State (79-75). The senior guard started play with a 23-point effort versus the Huskers, connecting on 7-of-14 shots from the floor. He then followed with his third career 30-point performance by scoring 30 points on 9-of-18 shooting against the Cyclones. For the week, he hit 50 percent (16-of-32) of his shots from the floor, including 64.7 percent (11-of-17) from 3-point range. He also totaled seven rebounds and averaged 36.0 minutes. Clemente is tied for fourth in the Big 12 in 3-point field goals made (51) this season." Here's the official announcement.
GoPowercat.com has a great story on College Game Day at our house. This story is free content.
Neill Woelk of the buffzone / dailycamera.com in Boulder has quite a write-up of the officiating witnessed at our game with CU yesterday. Something about the 68 personal fouls and 94 free throws caught his attention. The Cats' 54 free throws attempted came in as third all-time. This was on the heels of the Texas A&M game, in which 53 personal fouls were called, and 70 free throws were attempted. And we thought that was ridiculous! It'll be interesting to see if the Big 12 says a word about this.
K-State MBB had a fine 88-65 nationally televised win over Texas A&M tonight. Denis Clemente was on fire, ending with 24 points, and Jamar Samuels added 19. Here are some fun quotes from an Aggies message board. They didn't like the referees much, either!
I'm watching the Mike Leach firing with great interest, and also wondering if we (the public) will ever be confident that we know the full and true facts. I believe that many problems facing our nation come from our historical quest for fairness. It's a noble-sounding concept, but it also carries a high price. Fairness in our justice system has cost people's lives, as criminals have been released, only to steal or kill again. Fair international trade has seen other countries take ridiculous advantage of us. However well-intended our national values are, we have to be alert to finding the breaking point between fairness and outright stupidity. The customer service model has crept into our education system, from kindergarten through graduate school. Educators wrestle every day with "student development" vs. "customer service." Along with that is the increased willingness of students and parents to file a lawsuit whenever they don't get exactly what they want. Did Mike Leach go too far by isolating a player who, by most reports, was not respected or liked by his teammates? He could have found a more appropriate response than solitary confinement. Leach has a law degree. He ought to have sense enough to know that while most of his motivation for isolating the player may have been lazy performance in practice, the player and family would link the isolation to the concussion, thereby making Leach look like an insensitive monster. On the other hand, I believe that we've got to keep parents and administrators out of head coaching decisions as much as possible. What's happening at the college level began with little league and soccer. We've seen it here, too, for example when Jackie Stanley's dad pulled her from K-State for insufficient playing time (behind Shalee Lehning, I might add) as a first-semester freshman. We should let coaches do their job. What they're asking their athletes to do is not far removed from soldiers going into war. It's hard, it's often painful and it calls for giving every bit of effort humanly possible. Some people aren't up to that, and different people respond in different ways. Coaches know their players, their abilities and their attitudes. We have to trust our coaches' judgment, because they have behind-the-scenes information we don't have. In conclusion, here's what I think. For one thing, insufficient time was allowed in the Mike Leach investigation to get the full picture of information needed for a sound decision. Is it OK to punish players? I think so, and I've seen it personally on our own campus, as players have gotten some special assignments involving bleachers. I just think coaches need to take that extra moment to consider whether the punishment is teaching something, if it leaves the athlete with dignity intact, if the media and the public would consider it reasonable under the circumstances, etc. Head coaches at big-time universities are often making huge salaries, and they just need to remember that their high pay doesn't confer immunity from public opinion. A helpful guideline would be, what would Bill Snyder do?
The Cats' MBB program is #1 in the RealTime RPI today!
Andy Katz of ESPN has named the Cats as the ESPN Team of the Week!
The Cats are playing UNLV this week, and they're coached by two of my all-time favorite MBB players, Lon Kruger and Steve Henson. Here's a fine article in the Las Vegas Sun on the connections Lon's staff have with K-State. I really appreciated Lon's and Greg's contributions to the Men's Basketball History DVD that came out last year. By the way, Coach Neil Crane, mentioned in the article, gave me two semesters of A in physical education at Highland Community College, which anyone who knows me would find hard to believe.
Here's a column from the Kansas City Star which reports a study done in 2004-05 on the tendencies of NCAA referees in calling fouls. The professors involved concluded that referees are very aware of the balance of fouls on the scoreboard, and big picture, they try to even them out.
This series was started in 2007 to up the level of nonconference play. Here's a Wikipedia link. As of today, it's Big 12 - 8, Pac 10 - 2.
Here's the link to the Wall Street Journal article about Robert as a K-State football fan.
John Hoover of the Tulsa World has a nice story on the impact of Coach Snyder on his former assistants. Here's the link.
I took four hours over the holiday weekend to watch all of this documentary. It has segments on teams, coaches, facilities and memorable moments. It has commentary from a number of former players and coaches. When they refer to a great game or moment, the DVD will then go to footage of the game. Some of the former players with commentary are Mr. K-State, Ernie Barrett, Jack Parr, Bob Boozer, Rick Harman, Larry Weigel, Lew Hitch, Wally Frank, Howard Shannon, Steve Douglas, Dick Knostman, Roy DeWitz, Bill Guthridge, Don Matuszak, Lloyd Krone, Bob Chipman, Carl Gerlach, Scott Langton, Steve Henson, Chuckie Williams and Lon Kruger. Former coaches Lon Kruger and Greg Grensing were interviewed at length at UNLV, and the legendary Tex Winter had all kinds of stories from his 15 years at K-State. Current coach Brad Underwood has great stories about the Hartman era. Journalists and broadcasters we hear from include Fred White, Steve Physioc, Wyatt Thompson, Ben Boyle, Steven Farney, Kevin Haskin, Greg Sharpe, Tim Fitzgerald, John Dodderidge, David Smale and Mark Janssen. This would be great for serious newer fans to see the level of talent and commitment necessary to have teams that played in the Final Four, and routinely went to the NCAA tournament. Here's the direct link. Sometimes with productions like this, you look at it once, and that's it. I see myself going back to it often. As I write this, I'm already on my second pass through.
Since we learned that Ron Prince would be moving on, I've been telling people that I wouldn't be surprised if our next head coach is Bill Snyder, but I wasn't positive he would accept. I've also said all along that if I'm correct and Bill Snyder would replace Ron Prince, we absolutely wouldn't know it until the season is over. After spending an hour a week with Coach Snyder at his radio shows for 17 years, I know him well enough to state that he would consider it rude to be announced as coach while Ron Prince was still officially our coach. He would also worry that the announcement would be a distraction to the team, and should not occur prior to the last game. Along with his brilliance as a coach, Bill Snyder is a gentleman. He would want Ron Prince to have full authority and respect while still employed. The unattributed reports from anonymous message board posters that Gary Patterson's wife has been in Manhattan finalizing the purchase of a house carry absolutely no weight with me. I haven't seen a single conclusive piece of evidence that Coach Patterson wants to come here, and his alleged denials to TCU team members, if true, fit a consistent pattern of response from him. I think that hopeful fans are putting entirely too much on the fact that he is an alumnus. He was here about 25 years ago, and to my knowledge has not kept close ties. He has not even taken the opportunity, over the past three weeks, to wish us well in our search. What about the search committee that Bill Snyder was supposedly a member of? Well, if he were seen meeting with Jon Wefald and Bob Krause, people would just assume it was a committee meeting. Or not. Mark Janssen of the Manhattan Mercury, who I consider the ultimate source on K-State football, seems to agree with me. Mark wrote today that, "The silence and privacy of the last two-plus weeks looks and feels very Snyder-like." That much is certain. I think I'm right, and I definitely hope I'm right.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the Cats in the latest version of Jack Hartman's lavender-over-purple road uniforms. If you'd like to see what these uniforms mean in terms of our program's history, look here. If you're not aware of the Hartman era and K-State's winningest coach, you may enjoy reading up on it a little bit.
The Pride of Wildcat Land rolled out of Manhattan at the crack of dawn to make it to the KU football game on Nov. 1. They performed extremely elaborate marching maneuvers to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," and by all reports blew the roof off the dump. A band member told me yesterday that they may perform it again this Saturday to show the Nebraska band a few things. I promise you you'll be filled with pride if you take 7:16 to watch this YouTube video of the performance. Notice the cheering from the Hawk fans at the end of the performance. Here's another YouTube video of their performance of it for the Central States Marching Festival on October 19 in Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
K-State Fans: November 4, 2008 Former quarterback Zac Burton has an opinion piece in the Manhattan Mercury on our coaching situation. It's time for a resolution. As it stands now, the uncertainty about the state of K-State fooball is a soap opera for boys. Fans want answers. I don't predict any action until the end of the month.
I'm on this again because someone's not listening to me. I don't know anything about football, but after 38 years I know a lot about K-State athletics. This is not about game strategy, or whether there should be personnel changes after giving up 626 yards. This is about fans. We fans must provide absolute support to our coaches and players at games. Fan support is going down fast. This is detrimental to the motivation of our players, and the income Athletics needs to compete in the Big 12. It's sure to damage recruiting. I saw the same thing happen in men's basketball during the Asbury and Wooldridge eras. How can you recruit top players with the kind of fan support shown on regional ABC coverage today? If you don't like what's going on, write a letter with your ideas to Dr. Wefald or Bob Krause, but don't cast your vote by not showing up. Potential players and coaches need to see that even if our winning percentage is down, K-State is a great place to be, and a great place to play.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story on the expenditures on athletic recruiting. The article includes a chart which lists K-State as #5 in the nation in spending for 2006 - 07. I wonder whether that was before the ban on private aircraft that KU got put into place. K-State was the biggest spender in the Big 12, although not far above NU and UT.
Look at this article in the American Statesman on the $107,600,000 budget of University of Texas athletics.
Once again, controversy has developed over the Cat Band's playing Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Pt. 2, or as the band sometimes calls it, Time Lords. I've never noticed it, but apparently this past year the students have substituted the item that we're going to beat out of our opponent. It's not a good choice for our younger and more conservative fans, but that's not why I called you here. Whether at football, basketball or volleyball, every time the band plays that tune, the students stick their arms up and wave them back and forth. Stop it! Why don't our students understand that they're waving the wheat, which is a decades-old KU tradition? It makes me sick every time I see it. The bands have to stop playing that song if our students don't realize they're participating in a highly disgusting KU tradition.
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Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star has filed a tremendous 
Athletics director John Currie 
