K-State Q&A: Shane Southwell, football unknowns, streaming suggestions and big cats
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
Before we jump into your questions, which are mostly all on the creative side this week, let’s get you caught up on what happened in the world of K-State sports over the past few days.
Bruce Weber hired Shane Southwell as K-State’s newest assistant coach, and the former Wildcats player is eager to bring a young voice to the staff. That was absent last season without Chester Frazier. I personally like the move to bring Southwell back. He is well liked in K-State’s locker room and has helped the team win Big 12 championships as both a player and a graduate assistant. It’s unclear how he will perform as a recruiter, but he has ties to the New York region. That could pay off.
Under different circumstances, it might have made more sense for Weber to add some new blood to his staff but this was the logical move with the coronavirus pandemic limiting travel and canceling games.
Speaking of Frazier, former K-State guard Cartier Diarra will reunite with him at Virginia Tech if Diarra doesn’t turn pro this spring.
And Skylar Thompson is missing spring football, but the K-State quarterback is staying active while in quarantine in Kansas City.
Also: I have some highlights from a classic K-State basketball game to share. Everyone talked about the Sweet 16 game against Xavier from 2010 last week, and that got me thinking about the game K-State won to reach that round. The Wildcats beat BYU and Jimmer Fredette 84-72 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament a week earlier in another entertaining game that has somewhat been forgotten.
BYU raced to a 10-0 lead and then Jacob Pullen took over. He made a lot of shots that day. Watch his transition pass to Dominique Sutton near the end of this clip. Oh boy!
I may try and share a classic game here each week until things get back to normal. Now, let’s get to your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
It’s fair to assume every athletic department in the country has at least discussed a few contingency plans in the event that college football is not played next season.
But K-State athletic director Gene Taylor seems to have a more optimistic approach to the situation than some of his peers.
He continues to hope that the Wildcats might be able to hold some sort of substitute for spring practice if things go back to normal in the next few months, and he hasn’t said anything about fearing a canceled football season. So I don’t think the Wildcats will be announcing any cost-saving measures in the immediate future like Iowa State went ahead and did earlier this week.
The Cyclones will reduce pay for some of their highest-salaried coaches and eliminate all performance-based bonuses that are contained in their contracts for the next year. Those moves are expected to help Iowa State make up for the loss of income it was expecting to receive from the Big 12 Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.
It’s not a great sign that a peer institution decided to make the kind of move in early April. It makes you wonder if other schools will inevitably have to follow suit.
College athletics is facing an interesting budget situation with or without football. They all lost out on revenue when basketball tournaments were canceled and they will have to spend more on scholarships next season with seniors in spring sports allowed to return for an extra year of eligibility.
Every athletic department, including K-State, will need to metaphorically tighten its belt in some way. But there are a lot of avenues for doing that. Any school with financial reserves might be able to tap into those and continue on as normal. I’m not sure what the Wildcats are planning at the moment.
Playing football in the fall will solve a lot of problems. Everyone is hoping it happens.
I have often wondered about this myself.
When I go to the zoo and see a cougar, a mountain lion, a bobcat or a tiger I sometimes think it’s funny to tell my kids, “that’s a K-State Wildcat.” But I have used that line with all of those creatures. So I’m no expert.
I often wonder which animal K-State athletics would prefer to identify with, as it’s up for interpretation. The mascot itself is a muscular college student wearing a cat head. Human body, cat face ... That doesn’t give us any clues.
A Wildcat, by definition, only needs to be two things — wild and a cat.
That technically brings every type of feline into play, including house cats, lions and cheetahs ... so long as they roam the wilderness free of owners like Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin.
But I think we can eliminate some of the contenders rather easily. A Wildcat is most definitely not a lion or a cheetah or a puma or a cougar or a tiger. If it was supposed to be on of those things it would be called one of them instead of a Wildcat. Let’s cross them off the list.
That leaves a mountain lion or a bobcat. It could also be a wild house cat.
It’s for each of us to decide for ourselves. That’s some of the magic behind the Wildcats. They can be anything you want them to be. But I tend to view them as bobcats. Why else is Phil the Bobcat a thing? If K-State ever looks into adding a live mascot at games it should go with a bobcat. Or maybe just bring back Boscoe the Dog.
First and foremost: K-State could use a new media workroom and interview space at Bramlage Coliseum.
The current setup is by far the worst in the Big 12. There isn’t enough room in the storage closet they use for interviews to hold all the media that shows up for big games.
For the record: I am well aware that improving media space is and should be low on the to-do list of any athletic department. But you asked what I would renovate, and I’m being selfish right now.
Other than that, I would love it if they could build a retractable roof over Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Watching football games in the rain and bitter cold isn’t fun. Open it up for good weather. Close it for bad weather. That would be awesome.
Also: Chris Klieman is practically unbeatable when his team plays inside. It would create an incredible dome-field advantage.
If I could go back in time and cover one K-State sporting event, I would gun it to 88 mph in my Delorean and travel back to 1978 to watch Kansas State play the Russian Oympic team in an exhibition game at Ahearn Field House.
It still blows my mind that happened. And K-State won!
How was that game scheduled? How did the Wildcats beat a national rival? That would be like them beating the coronavirus basketball team today.
I am still amazed by the stories old fans tell about that game. K-State agreed to play it between conference games against Oklahoma State and Kansas. Can you imagine Weber, or any coach, doing that today? Young fans say Bramlage reached its maximum volume when Cartier Diarra threw down a windmill dunk against Kansas last season. Old fans say Ahearn Field House was WAY louder when the Wildcats beat the Russians.
We’re talking legit ear-piercing decibels inside the old barn.
Plus, I feel like most people have little to no knowledge that such a game took place. I had no idea until former Topeka columnist Kevin Haskin told me about it a few years ago. I’m just so curious about it.
On a national scale, I would have loved to have been embedded with the first Jamaican bobsled team and written a book about it. I could have called it Cool Runnings and made a lot of money.
I realized something the other day that still blows my mind: I haven’t watched a single second of ESPN programming in nearly three weeks. No games, no morning shows, no debate programs, no SportsCenter ... Nothing.
Summer, at least as it pertains to the sports landscape, has arrived early. Sadly, I would settle for the occasional boring baseball game on my TV right now.
Living without games hasn’t been all that hard. Believe it or not, there is still a lot to write about when it comes to sports. So I’m still busy as ever during the week. At night and on the weekends is where I have had to make a few adjustments.
I helped my 5-year old son learn how to ride a bike last week, so most of my evenings are now devoted to bike rides with the family. I’m not complaining about that. We also eat all our meals at home now, so that eats up more time than you might think. There’s also more cleaning to be done at our house right now.
My daily routine seems more crowded than ever. I just spend most of my time at home.
One new thing I have just began dabbling in is virtual hangouts (or happy hours) with friends. I caught up with some old high school buddies last weekend on a Google Hangout and plan to do the same with college friends at some point this week on a group FaceTime. Might try Zoom next.
There’s still a lot going on. Not sure if I could even handle games right now.
With three kids at home 24/7, I sadly haven’t been able to binge-watch all that many shows lately. When the TV is on during the day, it’s almost impossible to watch anything that isn’t on Disney Plus. The best family show I have binge-watched is Family Matters. Alas, I can’t get my kids interested in any of the other former TGIF classics.
But here’s what I like to watch after the kids go to bed.
1. BoJack Horseman
As you can tell from my Twitter avatar, I am a big fan of BoJack Horseman. I’ve been watching adult animated sitcoms since the glory days of The Simpsons and it ranks right up there with the best of them like King of the Hill, Family Guy and Rick and Morty. What makes it so entertaining, though, is that it is a mixture of comedy and drama. Some episodes are all about humor, some are all about drama. Some are a mix. Others are just completely weird. If you’ve never watched it before, do yourself a favor and start now. If you’ve watched it before, watch it again like syndicated re-runs.
2. Altered Carbon
The beauty about this futuristic sci-fi show is that the main characters switch bodies throughout the series, making it both interesting and difficult to follow. As soon as I finished Season 1, I went back and watched the first few episodes to put all the pieces together. As soon as I finished Season 2, I wanted to go back and watch Season 1 again.
3. Tiger King
I blitzed through it in a week. You should too. This show is a lot like Star Wars. You have to watch it if you want to understand all the Tiger King references your friends make. My wife was even willing to watch it with me. That was a bonus.
4. Narcos Mexico
I will watch as many Narcos episodes as they can possibly make.
5. Dave
You won’t want to watch this FX/Hulu show with your children, but Lil’ Dicky is really funny. I’m all in.
A few other suggestions: Eastbound and Down, Ballers, The Simpsons, The Mandalorian, Bloodline, Breaking Bad, The Wire.
I want to watch The Platform on Netflix. The trailer makes it look like one of those sci-fi movies that is so bad it’s good. At first, the premise made me laugh. Later, I really got an itch to watch it. Problem is, my wife has absolutely no interest in it and my kids aren’t old enough. So I’m not sure when I will have time for it. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also recently came out on Starz. I want to see that, too.
One movie that I will defend until the day I die is 2 Fast 2 Furious. I think it’s one of the best movies in the entire F&F series. The buddy dynamic between Brian O’Conner and Roman Pearce pulls me in every time. Before you completely dismiss my love for this movie, remember Ludacris, Eva Mendes and Tyrese Gibson would have never been in any of the F&F movies without it.
One popular movie I have never watched is Titanic. I’m not about to start now.
When I order steak, I like it cooked medium ... sometimes medium well.
When I eat barbecue, I want to taste a place’s brisket, sausage and ribs. I like turkey and pulled pork, too, but those are both so easy to make at home that I’m not paying for it at a restaurant.
Give me Tex-Mex all day over any kind of other Mexican food.
I have eaten sushi before, but it’s been a while.
The only thing that I can’t seem to find anywhere is toilet paper.
My wife and I managed to order dish washer soap online and found a few other rare items like diapers at Target’s website, but there really is a shortage of toilet paper. Last week, I had what I thought was an ingenious idea to look for it at the neighborhood gas station. Alas, it was the only thing they were out of at the entire store.
Fortunately, my in-laws got their hands on some in Clay Center and gifted some to us. I was close to searching for some on the black market.
Essential items have been easy to come by, otherwise. I’ve seen some horror stories in other parts of the country of grocery stores selling out of meat other than chicken feet. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened here. Bread, milk, eggs and bananas can be scarce if you head to the grocery store at the wrong time, but they are typically back on the shelves the following day.
The last time we went to the store we came home with everything on our list. Here’s hoping it’s that easy for everyone else out there reading this.
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Shane Southwell, football unknowns, streaming suggestions and big cats."