Snyder will step away at K-State

~ The coach who turned Kansas State from a laughingstock to national power will coach his final game Saturday against Missouri.

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Saying he wanted to spend more time with his family and that the time was right to move along, Bill Snyder retired Tuesday from the Kansas State program he coached from college football's depths to a spot among the nation's elite.

The 66-year-old Snyder, Kansas State's coach since 1989, said his health was not a factor.

"As far as I know, my doctor has not complained -- well, he's complained about some of my habits," Snyder said. "But to my knowledge, I'm physically fine."

Athletic director Tim Weiser said no timetable had been set for choosing Snyder's successor. Snyder, who signed a 6-year contract extension in 2001, will stay on as a special assistant to Weiser.

With Kansas State failing to qualify for a bowl for a second straight year, his final game will be Saturday at KSU Stadium, in the Wildcats' regular-season finale against Missouri. The stadium will be renamed Bill Snyder Family Stadium, the university announced Tuesday.

"Family" was a common theme during Snyder's news conference, with the coach repeatedly fighting back tears almost every time he said that word.

And although Snyder's health might not be at issue, he talked several times about the toll his schedule -- long hours spent at the office, breaking down film and preparing game plans from the predawn dark to late at night -- has taken on his family life.

"I've not been the kind of father that I should have been, and the kind of husband," said Snyder, who has five children and eight grandchildren.

When Snyder took over the Wildcats' program, Kansas State was the only major-college team with 500 losses.

He is 135-68-1 in Manhattan, including a run of 11 straight bowl games that began with the 1993 season. But after winning the Big 12 championship in 2003, Kansas State has stumbled to two straight losing seasons.

Kansas State, (4-6, 1-6 Big 12) has failed to qualify for a bowl game for the second straight year, the first time since 1991 and 1992 that Kansas State missed bowl games in consecutive seasons.

Snyder went 1-10 in his first season, but his team steadily improved. In 1993, the Wildcats appeared in a bowl game for the second time in school history, defeating Wyoming in the Copper Bowl.

By the late 1990s, with Michael Bishop at quarterback, they were a national championship contender.

Snyder had his team on the brink of playing for a national title in 1998 before Texas A&M upset the previously undefeated Wildcats in the Big 12 championship game. Kansas State then opened 9-0 the following season before being routed at Nebraska in 1999.

Stepping away after a successful season would have made things harder on his successor, Snyder said Tuesday. But with 18 starters scheduled to return next year -- although some of them could transfer -- Snyder said he is leaving the next coach in a better situation than the one he inherited in 1989.

"Some of the glow is off the program," he said. "The expectations are not going to be quite so high," he said. "But this can be a good program. The foundation is there."

Freshman quarterback Allan Evridge, who won the starting job at midseason, agreed.

"I feel a good coach can come in and get this thing rolling right away," said Evridge, who learned of Snyder's decision in a team meeting Monday night. "This year didn't play out the way we wanted it to, but there's a great future and a lot of promise."

That doesn't make Snyder's decision -- or his contention that the program would be better off in other hands -- any easier to take, university president Jon Wefald said.

"There is nobody else in this room, and certainly nobody in this administration that shares his belief," said Wefald, who was president when the former Iowa assistant was hired in 1989. "Our thought would be that he would continue on for months and years to come.

And despite the recent troubles, the news shocked Kansas State fans and Manhattan.

At the Aggieville Barber Shop, where Snyder gets his hair cut, the coach's face and signature adorn every wall.

His impending retirement dominated barber chair conversations all morning, barbers Phil Kuehl and Jed Mosher said.

"There's been a lot of grumbling, and I guess some people might have gotten what they wished for," Kuehl said with a rueful smile. "I hope they're happy."

Kuehl, a longtime fan who remembers the winless seasons of the 1980s, said newer fans have become spoiled by Kansas State's success under Snyder.

"These college kids don't remember anything but winning," he said. "They don't remember anything from the '80s."