To understand new K-State wide receiver Izaiah Williams, who arrived on January 12 after two seasons at Texas A&M, perhaps it's best to start with what Williams saw growing up. From St. Louis, Missouri, to San Antonio, Texas, to Tampa, Florida, wherever the Williams family lived, there was the K-State jersey along with a K-State helmet, and a K-State flag waved in the breeze outside the Williams' home.
A little more than a week ago in the large, urbanized San Fernando Valley, located north of the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles, California, a 47-year-old by the name of Terence Newman was taking his daughter to an afternoon school performance, when his phone began to chime. Would Newman be available to join former Hall of Fame head coach Bill Snyder and new Kansas State head coach Collin Klein for a Zoom call? Newman, a dedicated father, was in a rush and wouldn't allow his daughter to be late to school.
It's 11:30 a.m. on a beautiful first Friday in January as Rudy Darrow sides into a chair in his office along the edge of Tointon Family Stadium. The eyes of the 41-year-old Darrow, who enters his fourth season as pitching coach for Kansas State baseball, appear rested — no doubt, trained from years of light, slight sleep. Husband to wife Jessica for 13 years, Darrow is father of three daughters in Rooney (11), Danni (8) and Merrick (4), and Darrow often arrives at his office — his domain — before the first glint of sunlight hits home plate inside a stadium that will soon buzz with the electricity of Bat Cat baseball fever.
There's a story Monique Hardy likes to tell. Well, she was actually bashful in telling the tale for the first time in February 2022, when the native of Webster, New York, a city that borders the southeastern shoreline of Lake Ontario and is a two-hour ferry ride from Toronto, let fly an achievement drenched in humility. As a senior at Webster Thomas High School, Hardy recorded a weight throw of 66 feet, 11 ¼ inches at the 2020 Millrose Games in New York City.
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