Cancer didn’t account for this run game
Good morning. In case you were listening to someone sniveling about what someone said on social media or complain about their data plan or lack of five-star recruits, here’s a dash of perspective real quick:
Kansas State coach Bill Snyder diagnosed with cancer, to continue coaching https://t.co/pGZ5rNZExN pic.twitter.com/BeD7K5Bh8L
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) February 13, 2017
Bill Snyder is only 77 years old, but he’s lived through eons and centuries of the college football collective consciousness. A.K.A. the building of the Kansas State Wildcats. He’s taken one of the worst teams in history and led them to the brink of immortality. He’s not gonna quit because of something trivial like this.
Throat cancer ain’t shit. Levon Helm was a founding member of The Band, one of the most talented musical groups of the last century. He grew up on a hardscrabble dirt farm in Arkansas, survived the rockabilly Canadian rock circuit, the sixties, the hardcore lifestyle, and even a slide into heroin in the later years. He was one of the better singing drummers in rock. Just listen to Up on Cripple Creek or The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down for a taste of that velvet twang. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998. He kicked it, went on to regain his singing voice, dropped a critically acclaimed album, and lived another 14 years.
(Levon Helm is also cool as shit. Read his autobiography and peruse his IMDB page.)
You can’t overstate the impact of Bill Snyder. The first game I ever attended at Kyle Field was against Kansas State in the first year of the Big 12’s existence. I was a typical myopic Aggie: I knew nothing of K-State and wrote them off as insignificant. Then a physically smaller, slower team proceeded to smother the Ags with infuriating technical proficiency. That was my introduction to Bill Snyder as well as the unpredictable nature of college football. For me, the two have always gone hand-in-hand.
You got this, Coach. The question isn’t if you’re gonna beat it, it’s how. We know you’ll do what you always do. You’re the reason we love college football.
Bill Snyder is going to beat cancer with a bunch of no name JUCOs while wearing a windbreaker from the 1985 Gator Bowl.
— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) February 13, 2017