The Central Kansas Catbackers painted The Club at StoneRidge purple on Thursday night.
Everywhere one looked, there was purple.
Kansas State head football coach Bill Snyder was the guest speaker for the event, which included a golf tournament in the afternoon, followed by a buffet and an auction.
Wyatt Thompson, the voice of the Wildcats, was there to introduce Snyder, along with Kansas State football wide receiver Chris Harper, fullback Braden Wilson, punter Ryan Doerr and volleyball middle blocker Alex Muff.
Snyder is all about family.
That’s why Snyder insisted when they renamed KSU stadium after him, that it would be named Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
That’s just the way Snyder rolls.
“What I appreciate so much is the values of the young people in our program and the fact that they really realize the significance of the appropriate values, which are the values of life,” Snyder told the audience of around 280.
“It’s the same thing if you try to teach your children. It’s my way of thinking. It’s the simplicity of it. It’s just hard work, tremendous discipline, a great responsibility and accountability. It’s growing together and being a genuine family.”
His family-first attitude has worked wonders during the past 20 seasons Snyder has stalked the sidelines in Manhattan.
“There’s a photograph that the athletic department puts out, a picture of our team coming out of the locker room, I can’t tell you which game it was,” Snyder said. “At the top of the ramp, all of our players are ready to come out and Tre Walker, who is one of our linebackers.
“He has a 4x4 piece of wood about three-foot-long and on the front of that, it says Family. The young people in our program genuinely care about each other and they have emulated to me what family is all about.”
The Wildcats are coming off a 10-3 season, where they captured a Cotton Bowl berth and wound up No. 8 in the final Bowl Championship Series standings.
The golf tourney featured 26 teams in the four-person scramble. Great Bend’s Roger Sell and Craig Smith and their sons, Connor Sell and Cole Smith, captured first place, shooting a collective 17-under 54.