Dear Wildcat Nation,

Good morning from Manhattan!Let me start by wishing all K-Staters a safe and meaningful Memorial Day‬ ​- certainly all of us are grateful for the service and sacrifice through the years of all our servicemen and women ... and their families.  ​ ​

Last month I had the opportunity to speak to the great kids at Fort Riley Middle School. About 60% of those 6th, 7th and 8th graders have a parent deployed overseas! Keep them all in your thoughts and prayers not just today but every day.

Tomorrow, I am heading down I-70 to Kansas City for the Big 12 annual meetings and there are several items I want to share with you before I hit the road.

Dear Wildcat Nation,

It was one year ago today that I was introduced as your Athletics Director, and what a year it has been! We are very proud of how hard our student-athletes, coaches and staff have worked this year and are excited to keep the momentum going as we move towards our vision of a model intercollegiate program.

While much of the current media buzz centers around conference expansion and realignment, which I touched on in my previous letter, I want to share with you a few updates from around our department as we head into the summer months:

Dear Wildcat Nation,

Catbacker season has officially begun and this week our 33-stop tour across the state kicks off in Western Kansas with stops in Dodge City followed by Garden City, Scott City, Colby and Hays. Our Catbacker program is one of the best college fan tours in the country and it is fun to be out on the road with our president, alumni president, foundation president and our coaches and staff visiting with K-Staters and talking about Kansas State University.

This week also marks the annual Big 12 men's and women's basketball meetings. Coach Patterson, Coach Martin and I will be in Dallas for those before heading to the Scott City event on Wednesday.

As you may have read, the Big 12 and Pac-10 athletic directors and commissioners met informally for a few hours last week in Phoenix to discuss different ideas and potential synergies. This was the latest in a series of proactive steps and communications over the last year or so that we have taken to continue to strengthen the position of K-State and the rest of the Big 12 relative to both conference alignment and our next round of television negotiations.