Bill Snyder left an indelible mark on the City of Manhattan. His record on the field is well known, but Snyder’s impact reaches further than wins and losses.
Snyder, credited for orchestrating “the greatest turnaround in the history of college football,” is the winningest coach in Kansas State University football history with a record of 215-117-1 throughout his 27 seasons as head coach. Under Snyder, a hall-of-famer in the College Football Hall of Fame, K-State football played in 19 bowl games and won 2 conference titles. He announced his retirement Dec. 2.
Over the nearly 30 years since Snyder first arrived in Manhattan in 1989, the university in addition to the city have grown significantly in more ways than one. Many factors contributed to that growth — including Fort Riley — but Manhattan City Manager Ron Fehr, who previously worked with the statistics crew at KSU football games when Snyder was hired and had a son who was recruited by Snyder, said Snyder and a winning football team were a part of the equation.
“Had the football program continued the way it was going, I think you could make a strong case that the community and the university wouldn’t have grown to the extent it had and that it did,” said Fehr. “As the football program grew, so did the city grow along with it.”
Fehr said growth near the stadium and around Kimball Avenue, now referred to as the north campus corridor, was a specific example of the development that Snyder’s success contributed to.
“The stadium that was here [in those years]was kind of isolated out there on that end of campus, there wasn’t a lot else out there — as a matter of fact, Kimball Avenue was still in the county and was a county maintained Road,” Fehr said. “The change along that part of campus and that corridor has been significant over the years and really led the resurgence of a lot of other athletic facility improvements and created that opportunity because of the sell-out ticket sales and just the growth of the football program.”
Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce Director of Economic Development Trent Armbrust agreed that Snyder has played a role in the region’s growth. In addition to bringing an increasing amount of media attention that helped market the community and spurred tourism, Armbrust says one of Snyder’s biggest impacts was getting Manhattan and KSU to believe they can compete on a national level.
“I think once we got to that national level we realized we need to stay competitive at that national level, that if we want to be what we aspire to we have to compete at a different level than we did before,” said Armbrust. “Bill Snyder, to me, really brought that thought and belief into the community.”
Kent Glasscock, Manhattan mayor from 1989 to 1990 and President of the K-State Institute for Commercialization, shared similar sentiments. He said Snyder and his success with K-State football showed Manhattan it can “play with the bigs” and gave the community big aspirations, pointing to the recent pursuit to be the location for the NBAF facility as an example.
“That facility could have gone anywhere in the country and it came here, and it came here I think because we believed in ourselves,” Glasscock said. “We believed at that point in time — the 2006, 2007 time range — that we could compete and we deserved to compete and we could win.”
Armbrust went on to say that winning atmosphere and belief created a vibe in the community that wasn’t necessarily there before.
“That leads us to a point where people are like ‘I want to invest in another house in Manhattan, I want to have that second home there, I want to open a business there because there’s that energy level’,” Armbrust said. “Energy is really important for economic growth.”
Glasscock said the success under Snyder’s leadership also brought in money that not only contributed to new facilities on the K-State campus, but also toward academic pursuits.
“The research enterprise has gone from really a paltry amount of money over the course of a year to now nearly $200 million of external research funding a year,” said Glasscock. “And $200 million into this community has just been a phenomenal impact, in and of itself.”
Snyder’s arrival in Manhattan — and subsequent success — also played a role in helping turn around declining student enrollment rates during the 80s as well. KSU enrollment was around 15,000 at that time and has now risen to around 23,000.
“There was certainly significant growth and desire for students to want to attend K-State and many because of that, just wanting to be part of that winning program,” said Fehr.
In addition, Snyder had a personal touch with the community that also won’t be forgotten. In addition to his humble demeanor and generally respectful attitude, he’s had a hand in the growth of the leadership program at KSU, advocated for Johnson Cancer Research Center, served as co-chair of a previous bond issue campaign for Manhattan-Ogden USD 383 as well as invested and donated funds around the region — a lot of which is private and was never publicized.
“I think that Bill and Sharon Snyder have had impacts that truly have been invisible to most people,” Glasscock said. “He has had an impact because he cares, and he has stayed because he cares.”
And though Chris Klieman was named to succeed Snyder as head coach on Dec. 10, it will be a long time in Manhattan and around KSU before anyone forgets the name Snyder — even if his time standing on the sidelines of Bill Snyder Family Stadium have come to an end.
Snyder will remain living in the community and will transition to a role as special ambassador for the university.