Portal:Kansas/Selected article/8
The Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium is a stadium in Manhattan, Kansas. It is used for American football, and is the home field of the Kansas State University Wildcats football team. It is named after head coach Bill Snyder and the family atmosphere he's helped make famous at Kansas State.
Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium opened as KSU Stadium in 1968, with a seating capacity of 35,000. It was the replacement for the on-campus Memorial Stadium, which hosted Kansas State football games since 1922 (and is still standing today). The first game played at the new stadium was on September 21, 1968 – Kansas State shut out Colorado State 21-0.
Before the final game of the 2005 season, Kansas State offered to name the stadium Bill Snyder Stadium in honor of retiring head coach Bill Snyder. In 17 years, Snyder had turned the Wildcats, once the definition of college football futility, into a frequent championship contender in the Big 12 Conference. When he was asked about renaming the stadium, Snyder told school officials, "If you are going to do it, name it after the people that I care about the most."
Starting in the 2009 season, Snyder returned to coach the team again, becoming one of only three coaches in division I FBS history to coach in a stadium that bears his name, joining Bear Bryant at Alabama and Shug Jordan at Auburn.