Putting Himself into the Best Situation

By: D. Scott Fritchen

It's 2:00 p.m. Monday and Gunner Maldonado has just finished the grind. Physical therapy. An hour of soft tissue manipulation and massaging the knee followed by two hours of exercises to improve its strength. It's another day in the office for the new Kansas State safety, a senior transfer from Arizona, who moved from Tucson to his hometown of Chandler shortly after the end of the 2024 season, and who is diligent about getting in five PT workouts a week.

It's all for a great cause. It's for his football future. Maldonado is currently 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds and working to increase his weight, because he loves the game of football, and he savors this opportunity to bring his talents to Manhattan, where he took a 24-hour visit one day in mid-December and fell in love with Chris Klieman's program, opting to sign with the Wildcats on December 23.

"There was excitement and relief," Maldonado says. "The transfer portal is stressful, so there was relief and excitement to come to a new place and be around great people and get better at football and be a part of a good program.

"It's exciting because I know I have to uphold that standard they've created there."

Maldonado played his freshman year at Northwestern and became a defensive star at Arizona. He has 177 tackles, including 114 solo stops, six forced fumbles and four interceptions in his career. That includes 81 tackles, two interceptions and three fumble recoveries in 2023. Perhaps his most notable performance? How he made nine tackles, intercepted a pass, and returned a fumble 87 yards for a touchdown to earn 2023 Alamo Bowl Defensive MVP. Last season, he recorded four tackles in Arizona's 31-7 loss at K-State, when he heard the roar of Bill Snyder Family Stadium and sensed the passion of a K-State team that would finish the season with at least nine wins for a third straight year.

But it was a few weeks later in a game against Texas Tech on October 5 that Maldonado, a team captain, met the biggest challenge of his college career: A torn ACL that caused him to miss the remainder of the season.

"Really it was just a normal football situation," he says. "I was trying to get off a block, the play was going out of bounds onto their sideline and one of my teammates that was trying to make a tackle spun off the guy and flew right into the side of my knee. That's basically what happened. It was one of those plays where it's just bad luck. It was just one of those things. Just a bad situation. My cleat was in the ground. There was nowhere for my knee to go."

He pauses.

"I'm blessed to have this opportunity."

Why, all he wanted was an opportunity all along. As a young boy, he and his mother played catch with the football while watching football games on TV and he'd dive on the couch to make spectacular plays. As a member of Chandler High School's football team, he won four consecutive state titles, helping assume leadership the squad his final two seasons. Just when it appeared the opportunity was knocking, he suffered a shoulder injury between his junior and senior seasons, considered a prime time for football recruiting, and ultimately went to Northwestern. After one season at Northwestern, he transferred to Arizona, ultimately becoming the defensive leader. After making the most of his opportunities at Arizona, he decided to make a change prior to the 2025 season. He sought a new opportunity.

"I love everybody over there, the coaches, players and staff members," Maldonado says. "I think they have mutual love for me. It was just time for me to find a different situation for my last season and put myself in the best situation."

He says that he received "a lot of interest" from schools after he put his name into the transfer portal, but he only wanted to visit a couple. It came down to K-State and Indiana.

What appealed to him about K-State?

"Just everything," he says. "It's in a conference that I'm familiar with now, just the program and coaches, and they have a history. Being around defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman, I could tell he's a football guy, and it was good to sit in his office talking football. I met some of the players on the team and they're really cool, really respectful guys, and they talked to me about their culture in the locker room and it's a culture I'll fit into.

"Shoot, man, just going to a place where there's good people and good football, I'm just trying to be a part of that."

Where might Maldonado fit in Klanderman's defensive equation?

"It's a good group of guys and, man, I'm just going to come in and try to be the best teammate and best player I can be and wherever I fall, that's what it is, but that's what I'm trying to do," he says. "I want to be the best teammate and player I can be and help the team however I can."

Maldonado comes with proven leadership capabilities.

"I like to consider myself a great leader," he says. "More than anything, I try to lead by doing the right thing, and hopefully other guys just see that and want to do the right things as well. I personally feel like that's the most important thing as a leader, is making sure you're doing all the right things first. I think I can be a vocal guy, too. It just depends.

"Obviously, I'm coming into a new team so I'm going to have to find my place. But definitely for me, first and foremost is being honest, being trustworthy, and doing the right thing all the time. I think that goes a long way."

Maldonado peers off into the distance and for now, it seems a long way away: K-State at Arizona on September 13. He says it will give me a "weird feeling."

"Yeah, I've thought about it a couple times," he says. "It's going to be a weird feeling just because I've spent a lot of time over there. It's going to be weird being in the visitor's locker room. But those are my people over there and there's no hard feelings. It's love on both ends. It'll be fun to go back to Tucson and play against some of my boys over there and experience the other side of things.

"I'm excited and hopefully we go get that W."

For now, it's PT workouts and regaining strength in the knee. It's a few hours a day, five days a week. Maldonado says he won't participate in spring practice, but he already envisions K-State's season opener on August 23 against Iowa State in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland.

"It's going to be special," he says. "Last first game of a college season for me, first game with my new family, first game in a different country, a lot of firsts and a lot of lasts. It's going to be a special moment for sure. I'm going to embrace it as much as I can. We're going to go to work."

Hopefully, with many Ws to come in 2025.

"I know I'm coming into a program where we have our eyes set on championships, so I know that's the expectation," he says. "I'm a big believer in hard work can take you anywhere. Everyone around the nation has talent. I know the guys here know how to work. We have endless potential for this next season."

Kansas State University Athletics

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