SE: Wildcats Enjoy Many Gifts from Bowl Experience

While most students traveled home for the Holidays, ready to unwrap a joyous time with family, K-State’s football players prepared for a gift they earned — one every program has on its wish list when the season begins.

K-State’s 8-4 regular season gifted the Wildcats a spot in the AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl, the program’s seventh-straight bowl appearance and 20th overall. Within the trip to Houston, Texas, the Wildcats received an abundance of presents — some more tangible than others.

For seniors, it’s an extension of their K-State career — more time to spend with teammates they consider brothers and coaches considered father figures.

For the rest of the team, it’s a chance to send the seniors out on top and to cap an impressive in-season turnaround, from 3-3 to 9-4. It’s also, as head coach Bill Snyder often reminds his team, an opportunity to improve with each extra day of practice, for the bowl and beyond.

Bowl games offer memorable experiences beyond the game, too.

Some players get to enjoy a new city. Many other Wildcats relish the opportunity to play in their home state.

Outside of the routine of meetings and practices, which now respectively take place at the team’s hotel and Rice University, the Wildcats have been offered many tastes of Houston.

Players wandered The Galleria, the city’s premier shopping area, attended the Houston Texans’ battle against the Cincinnati Bengals at NRG Stadium, where they will take on Texas A&M on Wednesday, and enjoyed down time in their hospitality room, filled with recreational games such as billiards, shuffleboard and Golden Tee.

Additionally, the Wildcats will receive gifts from the Texas Bowl on Christmas Day, when a church service will be made available for the team and a festive dinner will take place.

On Monday, K-State will take part in a scavenger hunt with children from the DePelchin Children’s Center, an accredited foster care and adoption agency that, its mission statement reads, strives to “improve the mental health and physical well-being of children at risk of entering or within the State’s welfare.” Later that day, select K-State and Texas A&M players will face off in the annual Rodeo Bowl, a fun-filled competition that consists of a variety of rodeo-themed events at George Ranch Historical Park, and will close the evening with a true Texas barbecue meal.

The Wildcats begin Tuesday with meetings, preceding a press conference with Snyder and K-State’s captains. After a walk-through at NRG Stadium later in the day, the team will load up to meet their fans at the Pep Rally at BBVA Compass Stadium, home of the MLS club Houston Dynamo, where gates will open at 1 p.m.

The next time the Wildcats will see their fans will be back in NRG Stadium, where they hope to leave with the program’s eighth bowl victory — a late Christmas present for K-State fans across the country.

Kansas State University Athletics

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