‘This is Home’
Jun 29, 2026 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
He grabbed the microphone with his left hand and pointed to the sky with his right, this whirling, lavender polo-wearing, country traveling, sideline pumping, official-recruiting-visit speaking, 41-year-old son of Wichita, Kansas, who was born 6.1 miles east at Wesley Medical Center, and who today stands before hundreds of purple-clad Kansas State supporters at Chicken N Pickle, needing no introduction at the Wichita Catbackers gathering — just a microphone.
"IT'S GREAT BEING BACK HOME IN WICHITA!" Taylor Braet beams, as the crowd erupts in applause and cheers.
"Somehow, luckily, I'm going on my 21st season here with the Cats!" Braet continues. "Very proud alum. K-State is home. The coolest thing I get to do is tell every kid who steps on campus how special K-State is, and what makes K-State special is the people. My mother is here. If you see a lavender van driving around Wichita, that's my mom. The pride that I have in this state and in the people and in this school in being an alum and sharing it is my drive. I'm a fifth-generation Kansas kid who was married on the K-State campus."
Braet, the longtime Director of Football Recruiting who is now entering his first season as Director of Player Personnel and High School Relations, smiles wide, and the crowd continues to erupt, clapping as he speaks, so loud that it makes ears strain at times to hear what he says next. Then the noise dies down, and Braet simply stands in front of a red-brick ballroom wall, with dear friend and new K-State head football coach Collin Klein standing 15 feet away. And Braet looks over at Klein. And then Braet looks out at the crowd. And Braet, who is believed to be the longest-tenured member of a college football recruiting staff in the entire country, takes a breath for once, and for what seems like a small eternity. And Braet, who can talk hours about 21 years of his time at K-State, the ups and downs, the life and the work, the love and the fight, the victories and defeats, concludes his introduction — or reintroduction to Wichita and K-State nation — with three simple words.
"This," he says, "is home."
And now, after his trip to Wichita to see his mother and visit with K-State fans and to support Klein at his first-ever trip to a Wichita Catbackers event as a head coach, Braet occupies the fourth-floor black leather couch in the spacious lobby of the Vanier Family Football Complex. To his right is a massive oak bowl game trophy case, and in front of him is a wall-sized flatscreen surrounded by helmets from every NFL team — the flatscreen playing NFL Draft highlight reels of each K-State player selected in an NFL Draft. Currently, the flatscreen is showing Deuce Vaughn highlights.
The fourth floor, usually buzzing with activity as Klein, assistant coaches, and support staff walk across the lobby and through hallways and into offices, carrying notebooks and tablets and laptops, is eerily silent.
"We're on vacation, that's all I know," Braet says, smiling, looking around the empty surroundings. "We're on vacation, and I'll be here again tomorrow. It's like my wife says, 'You don't vacation?' I say, 'No, when you live in paradise, why do you need a vacation? What more is there?'
"The Wichita Catbackers event? That was so well attended. That was truly K-State. Now, I'll just hang out. I'm going to have lunch with a donor and take the kids to swimming lessons, and we have soccer tonight. We had wrestling yesterday. I just hang out and get told every morning by my wife what I'm supposed to do that day because I have no idea — or she already told me three times and I forgot all three times. But, in seriousness, we're still recruiting. It never stops. You're in constant contact with kids. I'm snap-chatting kids every single day, all day long, just to build that relationships and keep those things steady."
In the ever-changing world of college football — a landscape that these days seemingly shifts by the season, if not by the month — and in a recruiting world that went from wall-sized stacks of VHS high school football highlight tapes in the 1990s and 2000s to today's massive terabyte databases of prospects that can be toted around on 13-inch tablets, Braet has been the constant cog at K-State, and in the Big 12 Conference, and in the Football Bowl Subdivision. It's believed that nobody in his area of expertise has been around any longer. He has served under four head coaches — Ron Prince, Bill Snyder, Chris Klieman and now Collin Klein — and he has recruited K-State players, and then their sons, and he remembers the names of every K-State player, and he can recite each of their paths to Manhattan, and he crackles with an unrelenting contagious energy, quick wit, and a comedic tenor at nighttime get-togethers that softens almost to a whisper at a quiet table when discussing what's truly inside his heart. And what's inside his heart, which brings him almost to tears, is a love for a state, a university and a football program that shines with a brand of specialness that only Braet and a few other fortunate stewards around K-State can properly place into perspective.
"The people you touch and who've touched your heart and your life, and the weddings and funerals, and the relationships, are unbelievable, and a representation of an unbelievable university and a tremendously special place," Braet says. "The past 20 years have gone by quick because you're always waiting for football season, and then after the season, you're already building for next season. As for the amount of change? The new Vanier Complex, new West Stadium Center, new Shamrock Zone, new indoor practice facility, staff changes, and players changes, the highs and lows, you've experienced them all in 20 years."
In the realm of K-State, the Big 12 Conference, and the Football Bowl Subdivision, Braet is currently immersed in an experience perhaps unlike any in the history of college football.
Think about this: Taylor recruited the head coach.
Once upon a time, Klein, a native of Loveland, Colorado, and a three-star quarterback who was the seventh-best prospect in the state, accepted a scholarship offer to play football at K-State. Klein redshirted the 2008 season, started two games at wide receiver in 2009, started two games at quarterback in 2010, then became a 2011 Honorable Mention All-American by Sports Illustrated, and then became into a 2012 Heisman Trophy finalist, capping a career that landed him in the K-State Football Ring of Honor.
"When you say that you recruited the greatest quarterback in K-State history and now he's back as the head coach, and his wife, Shalin Spani, is one of the top 50 women's basketball players in K-State history, and her father, Gary Spani, was a K-State linebacker who's in the College Football Hall of Fame, there's nothing more K-State than that," Braet says. "Just to be on this journey with him, I'm just very blessed. It's wild that in recruiting you once picked up the head coach at the Holiday Inn in a 15-passenger van long ago and then six months ago you pick him up in College Station in a private jet. The consistency to be great and to be so competitive has never changed. He wants it so bad. I don't think I've ever been around anyone so driven."
So it was, on the morning of December 4, 2025, that Collin Klein, wife Shalin, and their four young children, drove from their home in College Station, Texas, to the nearby Easterwood Airport, to board an awaiting K-State private jet destined to bring the Klein family home to Manhattan. Klein, the wildly successful second-year offensive coordinator for a Texas A&M team preparing for the College Football Playoff, was about to experience one the most memorable days of his life, as he would be formally introduced as K-State head football coach later that day.
Standing there early in the morning hours inside the Easterwood Airport, waiting to greet Klein and his family, was a surprise.
Taylor Braet.
"Collin didn't know I was going to be on the plane," Braet says. "As soon as I saw him in the lobby in College Station, he got a huge, huge, huge smile, and I said, 'Hey, it's your moment, it's your time, let's go get it.' I can't imagine, because I can't imagine the chills of how the day was going to proceed for him. You hop on a flight with your whole family and land and do a press conference and speak in front of the public, and you're going to have tough conversations with some coaches and good conversations with some coaches, and everything that was planned for him that day, I was like, 'You got this.' He was running on zero sleep because he was thinking about the College Football Playoff game that he still had to coach at Texas A&M, and he had to go to Manhattan and handle everything the right way and get things rolling because this is your future, and there's no place you want to see succeed more than K-State, because this is home.
"Hopping on that flight on our way to Manhattan, we flew over the stadium and the kids were all fired up, and Shalin was fired up and so excited for the moment, and I remember landing, and Shalin got off the plane, and I saw her running toward my wife, teared up and crying. To see how this all came together, getting off that plane and seeing everything here at the Manhattan airport, and all the people here, you knew Collin had a big day ahead of him. All I had to do was get him from College Station and bring him home. I was just traveling. But it was a day I'll never forget."
Braet, who joined the K-State football program in 2006 as student assistant coach, served as Special Teams Quality Control coach and helped with recruiting, and then became the Director of Football Recruiting — a title that he held until late this past December. That's when Klein and Braet agreed on a fresher title and elevated responsibilities as Director of Player Personnel and High School Relations. Discussion about the new position first began on one of the 15 flights Klein and Braet took to retain K-State returning players in late December. Klein and Braet mapped out the new position and Braet says, "It's been fun, the energy has been high, and I was just eager and ready to tackle something new and different for the university and this football team."
"I was at the point where I was ready to hand off Director of Recruiting to a younger guy who's savvy on some of this stuff, and we hired Greg Svarczkopf from KU, and Greg's the only recruiter who ever gave me a handful from KU, and I was excited to bring Greg to the right side," Braet says. "Our staff is younger and has doubled in size. Now I'm older than the head coach and I never saw that coming. Now I also can be home a little bit more, too. Just a little bit more."
Home for the Braet family began when Taylor's great-great grandparents found a home in Wyandotte County, Kansas, in 1889. Taylor was born with a football in his hands. His father, Steve Braet, was in the midst of a legendary 42-year stint as defensive line coach at Butler Community College, where he helped the Grizzlies to NJCAA national championships in 1981, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2008. Steve was inducted into the Wichita Sports Hall of Fame in 2017, retired from coaching in 2022, and was inducted into the Butler Athletic Hall of Fame in 2024, having coached 33 All-Americans and 12 defensive linemen who went onto the NFL. Steve and Dana Braet had two sons, Taylor and Corey. Today, Corey wears scrubs and is drawing blood, and he is in charge of an ER unit at a major hospital, while Taylor wears purple and is in charge of pumping up the blood to a major college football team.
"I went to my first Butler football game when I was 5 days old," Braet says. "In grade school, I stayed up all night thinking, 'Dad's got to win.' Football has always been my most passionate thing. I wish I would've been a good football player. That would've been pretty cool. I have one muscle on my body, my mouth, and it runs every day. It's obviously worked out well. Yeah, I love this sport, it's the great brotherhood of guys who are 150 pounds to 350 pounds and from 5-foot-8 to 6-foot-7 all coming together from all walks of life coming together for one thing — to win a game."
Steve passed away at age 69 on Tuesday, May 2, 2024, following a lengthy battle with cancer. Although Steve is gone in the flesh, his loving spirit endures, drawing tears from his son, who so dearly misses his lifelong hero.
"My dad was a big deal to Butler, but he was never really a big deal nationally, but he was the biggest deal to me and my hero," says Braet, who during this interview wears a gray t-shirt that bears an image of his father and that reads "COACH BRAET" in big, bold letters. "Watching my dad's players go to league was cool. We had players stay in our house. Dad coached against Marc Dunn, who came to play at K-State, and dad coached Jermaine Berry and Byron Pringle and Ty Zentner. Dad was always my hero. He still is. And that will never change. We just have a tight family. There aren't a lot of Braet's running around in the world, so we've always stuck together."
Taylor and Leah Ost were wed at the All Faiths Chapel on the K-State campus in 2014. Leah and her family moved from Dickinson, North Dakota to Great Bend, Kansas, when she was six. She hasn't missed a K-State home football game since 1993. K-State football chaplain Jeff Smith officiated the wedding and Kyle Klein, a K-State wide receiver and younger brother to Collin, served as the pianist. The Braets have three children. Ten-year-old Brittany hasn't missed a home game and has attended eight bowl games. Seven-year-old Delaney has been to six bowl games. Five-year-old Briley has been to four bowl games and is known as "Briley Big Cat" to K-State football players.
All three children were born at Ascension Via Christi Hospital on College Avenue across the street from Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Briley was born on October 26, 2020 — after K-State's 55-14 win over Kansas — and in recruiting terms, Briley had a five-star birth. When Leah went into labor, Taylor, sky high from K-State's big win over its in-state rival and losing his mind over the soon-to-be birth of their third child, drove Leah to the hospital in their purple jeep. In the back of the jeep was the Governor's Cup Trophy, given annually to the winner of the Sunflower Showdown between K-State and Kansas — a trophy that K-State has now kept in its possession for 17 consecutive years.
"We beat KU, I took that trophy home, Leah went into labor, and she said, 'You better not bring that trophy!'" Braet says. "I left her hospital room and said, 'I have to go get the car seat.' I went to the car and brought back the trophy. I took the trophy into the lobby, and all the nurses laughed and took selfies with it. Then I brought the trophy into Leah's room and she rolled her eyes. I was like, 'Come on, you rolled into the hospital in a purple jeep with the trophy in the back, you knew how this was going to go down!'"
Braet lets out a bellowing laugh. For all Braet's endearing qualities that make him one of the most likable people at K-State, his laugh is perhaps second-to-none in the annals of Wildcat lore.
"I'm going to have a dang good time, and I think everyone knows that," Braet says. "I'm going to be the loudest person in the room, and I also know when to shut up — sort of. But if you ain't laughing, you ain't living. I want everyone to have fun. I'm relationship driven."
Taylor wasn't college football caliber as a player, but he so yearned to be a part of the game that he loved all his life that Steve helped him secure a spot as a student assistant coach on the Butler coaching staff. Taylor helped coach the linebackers during the Grizzlies' 2003 National Championship run, and he helped with the defensive ends and linebackers in 2004 and 2005 as Butler won conference championships all three seasons.
"At Buter, dad was like, 'If you want to get into this business, this is what's going to be asked of you — the time requirement and the effort and accountability. You have to be on time to early by 15 to 30 minutes for everything. You have to care about it and spend extra time,'" Braet says. "Dad used to tease me that if I wanted to be a ball coach, I couldn't get married, because I wouldn't have time for it, because I'd have to be available 24-7. Years later, we joked at Christmas that Leah proposed to me, and she asked my dad for permission to marry me. We always joke about that. Yeah, I knew I wanted to be a part of a team and something I could represent, and being at Butler with really good out-of-state players made me appreciate Kansas more, because we're overlooked, and that's OK, but some of that drove me to be like, 'Why can't we do it with in-state guys and do it the right away,' and you can't just have that, but it makes you appreciate more when guys come here."
Braet shot his shot at the Division I level and new K-State head coach Ron Prince gave Braet his chance and hired him to the football staff prior to the 2006 football season. Times were vastly different back then.
"I was very blessed that Coach Prince gave me the opportunity," Braet says. "There were only three student coaches and there were two graduate assistants on the staff. Now you look at our staff, and we have a whole scouting department and a whole recruiting department. Back then, we had one recruiting guy, so I helped with special teams and recruiting. It's crazy that I did both of those duties at the same time compared to now."
Braet graduated from K-State with a social science degree in 2008.
"I didn't grow up a K-Stater," he says. "I spent every Saturday at my dad's games and following my dad's players. I came to K-State and fell in love, which is scary to think, and I probably love K-State now more than I do football, but football is the way to put Kansas State the farthest on the map, because football is the front porch to the university, the most visible product there is.
"I always recruited and hosted. Even when I was at Butler, whenever we had a big-time recruit, I hosted him. I always sold the program. Dad would say, 'I have a defensive end on campus and you're hosting him. Get him to commit.' I'd say, 'OK, I'll get it done.' I've always been a relationship person. During COVID, I'd go to the grocery store just to talk to someone because I was so bored. I love talking to people."
While Klein and his assistant coaches, and the support staff, and the scouting staff, and recruiting staff, and operations staff put together super-impressive official visits for prospects and their families over the past month, the words that come from Braet's mouth do make a sizable impact.
"I just told the kids to come be a part of what Collin is building," Braet says. "He almost tasted it as a player, and almost tasted it as an assistant coach, and now he has the chance to taste it as a head coach. There's no other way than winning. There's no other way. Right now, we're putting together the best recruiting class in K-State history. Right now, we're trying to take a step up, and that's all you're trying to do every year. Collin is built for this moment and for this stage, and we need the right players, because the time is now.
"Obviously, it plays a part if you can get the best players in the country, but they still have to buy in and have the want and the desire to work for it."
Braet opens up about the past few crazy months.
"It was making up for lost time because as soon as the coaches were hired, they went on the road recruiting, and we sent out 10 coaches and we had to make sure these 10 coaches were going to see guys we had relationships with," Braet says. "Then after that, it was a dead period before spring ball, and then spring ball came, and we had on weekdays — Tuesday and Thursday — probably five to 10 kids every day, and then on weekends we had about 40 kids every weekend. Then as soon as spring ball was over, we hit the road recruiting for four weeks.
"Recruiting travel is crazy. These days, you get 16 coaches on the road, but you only get 140 total days of recruiting by your coaches, so you have to divide the days up among 16 coaches. So, some coaches might get two days on the road, five days on the road or 10 days on the road. You just have to make sure you're putting coaches in the right spots so you're not wasting time. It's way different than the old-school days of putting 10 coaches on the road for 15 days each, and you could hit every school in the state of Kansas, and you could do those old-school touches you used to. Now you have to maximize your time and effort. As soon as we finished travel in the middle of May, we had official visits in June, where we had as many 17 kids on a weekend — Thursday night through Sunday every single weekend. Then as soon as they left Sunday, we rolled into football camps.
"We were in football camp from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. each of the last three Sundays. Probably the last week was the biggest grind because Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we did something we'd never done before, which was hold a team camp with six high schools. Next year, we're going to build it to be even better. That's one of the coolest things we've ever done."
If there was a rare, quiet moment of pause inside the head of Braet, whose gears rapidly spin, and whose voice demands the attention of prospects, their families, and their coaches, the moment came one day in June.
"I got emotional introducing Collin to all the recruits on the final day of official visits," Braet says. "It's a blessing each time. I don't want to pinch myself because I don't want to wake up from the dream I'm living. It's so awesome, and it's a friendship, and a love. Once in a while, Collin and I get off the phone, and we'll say, 'Hey, man, I love you. I love you, too.' Because it is so deep and has been for so long and you know each other so well that you'll do anything you can for each other.
"Just being able to be a part of his journey and to talk about him and my relationship with him, I'm just very blessed to have him. It's just like when Shalin and Leah saw each other getting off the plane at the Manhattan airport the day of Collin's formal introduction as head coach, they teared up, and Shalin is running to Leah and they're just hugging, and so excited. Yeah, it's been a tremendous journey, and all of it has been a blessing."
The question, of course, becomes this: How much longer? How much longer will Braet, with all that he does and represents, remain a part of the K-State football program in this ever-changing world of collegiate athletics?
"I have to pass 40 years," he says. "I have to catch my old man, who had 42 years. I have to catch him. That's what I want. Everybody asks, 'What drives you?' I say, 'A lot of people think about a national title, but I'd love nothing more than to be given a purple coat for the K-State Athletics Hall of Fame. No place else, just here, because this has been my home, the place where we're raising our own kids is the same place where we've raised all these players.'"
He continues.
"This Class of 2027 should be the best recruiting class in K-State history," he says. "Being the longest-tenured dude in recruiting for a certain school is amazing. It says a lot to the kids I recruit. I can tell parents that I've been at K-State longer than their kids have been alive, and it's because of the community, the school, and it's special, and a bond, and truly a family. I tell them, 'I can put 20 years behind it.' They say, 'So this is really it.' And I say, 'Yeah, this is it, this is home, this is what drives me, this is my thing.' That puts a little exclamation point on recruiting. A lot of other places, recruiting guys are there for two years and then onto the next one.
"When football is done, I'll probably still be here. I don't envision myself leaving, either. I probably shouldn't say that because I'll never get a raise because they'll know I'll stay, but K-State is my home."
Braet laughs.
Braet grows quiet and pauses.
"Someday, football will end," he says, finally, "and I hope to stay here, and keep representing this place the right way."
He grabbed the microphone with his left hand and pointed to the sky with his right, this whirling, lavender polo-wearing, country traveling, sideline pumping, official-recruiting-visit speaking, 41-year-old son of Wichita, Kansas, who was born 6.1 miles east at Wesley Medical Center, and who today stands before hundreds of purple-clad Kansas State supporters at Chicken N Pickle, needing no introduction at the Wichita Catbackers gathering — just a microphone.
"IT'S GREAT BEING BACK HOME IN WICHITA!" Taylor Braet beams, as the crowd erupts in applause and cheers.
"Somehow, luckily, I'm going on my 21st season here with the Cats!" Braet continues. "Very proud alum. K-State is home. The coolest thing I get to do is tell every kid who steps on campus how special K-State is, and what makes K-State special is the people. My mother is here. If you see a lavender van driving around Wichita, that's my mom. The pride that I have in this state and in the people and in this school in being an alum and sharing it is my drive. I'm a fifth-generation Kansas kid who was married on the K-State campus."
Braet, the longtime Director of Football Recruiting who is now entering his first season as Director of Player Personnel and High School Relations, smiles wide, and the crowd continues to erupt, clapping as he speaks, so loud that it makes ears strain at times to hear what he says next. Then the noise dies down, and Braet simply stands in front of a red-brick ballroom wall, with dear friend and new K-State head football coach Collin Klein standing 15 feet away. And Braet looks over at Klein. And then Braet looks out at the crowd. And Braet, who is believed to be the longest-tenured member of a college football recruiting staff in the entire country, takes a breath for once, and for what seems like a small eternity. And Braet, who can talk hours about 21 years of his time at K-State, the ups and downs, the life and the work, the love and the fight, the victories and defeats, concludes his introduction — or reintroduction to Wichita and K-State nation — with three simple words.
"This," he says, "is home."
And now, after his trip to Wichita to see his mother and visit with K-State fans and to support Klein at his first-ever trip to a Wichita Catbackers event as a head coach, Braet occupies the fourth-floor black leather couch in the spacious lobby of the Vanier Family Football Complex. To his right is a massive oak bowl game trophy case, and in front of him is a wall-sized flatscreen surrounded by helmets from every NFL team — the flatscreen playing NFL Draft highlight reels of each K-State player selected in an NFL Draft. Currently, the flatscreen is showing Deuce Vaughn highlights.
The fourth floor, usually buzzing with activity as Klein, assistant coaches, and support staff walk across the lobby and through hallways and into offices, carrying notebooks and tablets and laptops, is eerily silent.
"We're on vacation, that's all I know," Braet says, smiling, looking around the empty surroundings. "We're on vacation, and I'll be here again tomorrow. It's like my wife says, 'You don't vacation?' I say, 'No, when you live in paradise, why do you need a vacation? What more is there?'
"The Wichita Catbackers event? That was so well attended. That was truly K-State. Now, I'll just hang out. I'm going to have lunch with a donor and take the kids to swimming lessons, and we have soccer tonight. We had wrestling yesterday. I just hang out and get told every morning by my wife what I'm supposed to do that day because I have no idea — or she already told me three times and I forgot all three times. But, in seriousness, we're still recruiting. It never stops. You're in constant contact with kids. I'm snap-chatting kids every single day, all day long, just to build that relationships and keep those things steady."
In the ever-changing world of college football — a landscape that these days seemingly shifts by the season, if not by the month — and in a recruiting world that went from wall-sized stacks of VHS high school football highlight tapes in the 1990s and 2000s to today's massive terabyte databases of prospects that can be toted around on 13-inch tablets, Braet has been the constant cog at K-State, and in the Big 12 Conference, and in the Football Bowl Subdivision. It's believed that nobody in his area of expertise has been around any longer. He has served under four head coaches — Ron Prince, Bill Snyder, Chris Klieman and now Collin Klein — and he has recruited K-State players, and then their sons, and he remembers the names of every K-State player, and he can recite each of their paths to Manhattan, and he crackles with an unrelenting contagious energy, quick wit, and a comedic tenor at nighttime get-togethers that softens almost to a whisper at a quiet table when discussing what's truly inside his heart. And what's inside his heart, which brings him almost to tears, is a love for a state, a university and a football program that shines with a brand of specialness that only Braet and a few other fortunate stewards around K-State can properly place into perspective.
"The people you touch and who've touched your heart and your life, and the weddings and funerals, and the relationships, are unbelievable, and a representation of an unbelievable university and a tremendously special place," Braet says. "The past 20 years have gone by quick because you're always waiting for football season, and then after the season, you're already building for next season. As for the amount of change? The new Vanier Complex, new West Stadium Center, new Shamrock Zone, new indoor practice facility, staff changes, and players changes, the highs and lows, you've experienced them all in 20 years."
In the realm of K-State, the Big 12 Conference, and the Football Bowl Subdivision, Braet is currently immersed in an experience perhaps unlike any in the history of college football.
Think about this: Taylor recruited the head coach.
Once upon a time, Klein, a native of Loveland, Colorado, and a three-star quarterback who was the seventh-best prospect in the state, accepted a scholarship offer to play football at K-State. Klein redshirted the 2008 season, started two games at wide receiver in 2009, started two games at quarterback in 2010, then became a 2011 Honorable Mention All-American by Sports Illustrated, and then became into a 2012 Heisman Trophy finalist, capping a career that landed him in the K-State Football Ring of Honor.
"When you say that you recruited the greatest quarterback in K-State history and now he's back as the head coach, and his wife, Shalin Spani, is one of the top 50 women's basketball players in K-State history, and her father, Gary Spani, was a K-State linebacker who's in the College Football Hall of Fame, there's nothing more K-State than that," Braet says. "Just to be on this journey with him, I'm just very blessed. It's wild that in recruiting you once picked up the head coach at the Holiday Inn in a 15-passenger van long ago and then six months ago you pick him up in College Station in a private jet. The consistency to be great and to be so competitive has never changed. He wants it so bad. I don't think I've ever been around anyone so driven."
So it was, on the morning of December 4, 2025, that Collin Klein, wife Shalin, and their four young children, drove from their home in College Station, Texas, to the nearby Easterwood Airport, to board an awaiting K-State private jet destined to bring the Klein family home to Manhattan. Klein, the wildly successful second-year offensive coordinator for a Texas A&M team preparing for the College Football Playoff, was about to experience one the most memorable days of his life, as he would be formally introduced as K-State head football coach later that day.
Standing there early in the morning hours inside the Easterwood Airport, waiting to greet Klein and his family, was a surprise.
Taylor Braet.
"Collin didn't know I was going to be on the plane," Braet says. "As soon as I saw him in the lobby in College Station, he got a huge, huge, huge smile, and I said, 'Hey, it's your moment, it's your time, let's go get it.' I can't imagine, because I can't imagine the chills of how the day was going to proceed for him. You hop on a flight with your whole family and land and do a press conference and speak in front of the public, and you're going to have tough conversations with some coaches and good conversations with some coaches, and everything that was planned for him that day, I was like, 'You got this.' He was running on zero sleep because he was thinking about the College Football Playoff game that he still had to coach at Texas A&M, and he had to go to Manhattan and handle everything the right way and get things rolling because this is your future, and there's no place you want to see succeed more than K-State, because this is home.
"Hopping on that flight on our way to Manhattan, we flew over the stadium and the kids were all fired up, and Shalin was fired up and so excited for the moment, and I remember landing, and Shalin got off the plane, and I saw her running toward my wife, teared up and crying. To see how this all came together, getting off that plane and seeing everything here at the Manhattan airport, and all the people here, you knew Collin had a big day ahead of him. All I had to do was get him from College Station and bring him home. I was just traveling. But it was a day I'll never forget."
Braet, who joined the K-State football program in 2006 as student assistant coach, served as Special Teams Quality Control coach and helped with recruiting, and then became the Director of Football Recruiting — a title that he held until late this past December. That's when Klein and Braet agreed on a fresher title and elevated responsibilities as Director of Player Personnel and High School Relations. Discussion about the new position first began on one of the 15 flights Klein and Braet took to retain K-State returning players in late December. Klein and Braet mapped out the new position and Braet says, "It's been fun, the energy has been high, and I was just eager and ready to tackle something new and different for the university and this football team."
"I was at the point where I was ready to hand off Director of Recruiting to a younger guy who's savvy on some of this stuff, and we hired Greg Svarczkopf from KU, and Greg's the only recruiter who ever gave me a handful from KU, and I was excited to bring Greg to the right side," Braet says. "Our staff is younger and has doubled in size. Now I'm older than the head coach and I never saw that coming. Now I also can be home a little bit more, too. Just a little bit more."
Home for the Braet family began when Taylor's great-great grandparents found a home in Wyandotte County, Kansas, in 1889. Taylor was born with a football in his hands. His father, Steve Braet, was in the midst of a legendary 42-year stint as defensive line coach at Butler Community College, where he helped the Grizzlies to NJCAA national championships in 1981, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2008. Steve was inducted into the Wichita Sports Hall of Fame in 2017, retired from coaching in 2022, and was inducted into the Butler Athletic Hall of Fame in 2024, having coached 33 All-Americans and 12 defensive linemen who went onto the NFL. Steve and Dana Braet had two sons, Taylor and Corey. Today, Corey wears scrubs and is drawing blood, and he is in charge of an ER unit at a major hospital, while Taylor wears purple and is in charge of pumping up the blood to a major college football team.
"I went to my first Butler football game when I was 5 days old," Braet says. "In grade school, I stayed up all night thinking, 'Dad's got to win.' Football has always been my most passionate thing. I wish I would've been a good football player. That would've been pretty cool. I have one muscle on my body, my mouth, and it runs every day. It's obviously worked out well. Yeah, I love this sport, it's the great brotherhood of guys who are 150 pounds to 350 pounds and from 5-foot-8 to 6-foot-7 all coming together from all walks of life coming together for one thing — to win a game."
Steve passed away at age 69 on Tuesday, May 2, 2024, following a lengthy battle with cancer. Although Steve is gone in the flesh, his loving spirit endures, drawing tears from his son, who so dearly misses his lifelong hero.
"My dad was a big deal to Butler, but he was never really a big deal nationally, but he was the biggest deal to me and my hero," says Braet, who during this interview wears a gray t-shirt that bears an image of his father and that reads "COACH BRAET" in big, bold letters. "Watching my dad's players go to league was cool. We had players stay in our house. Dad coached against Marc Dunn, who came to play at K-State, and dad coached Jermaine Berry and Byron Pringle and Ty Zentner. Dad was always my hero. He still is. And that will never change. We just have a tight family. There aren't a lot of Braet's running around in the world, so we've always stuck together."
Taylor and Leah Ost were wed at the All Faiths Chapel on the K-State campus in 2014. Leah and her family moved from Dickinson, North Dakota to Great Bend, Kansas, when she was six. She hasn't missed a K-State home football game since 1993. K-State football chaplain Jeff Smith officiated the wedding and Kyle Klein, a K-State wide receiver and younger brother to Collin, served as the pianist. The Braets have three children. Ten-year-old Brittany hasn't missed a home game and has attended eight bowl games. Seven-year-old Delaney has been to six bowl games. Five-year-old Briley has been to four bowl games and is known as "Briley Big Cat" to K-State football players.
All three children were born at Ascension Via Christi Hospital on College Avenue across the street from Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Briley was born on October 26, 2020 — after K-State's 55-14 win over Kansas — and in recruiting terms, Briley had a five-star birth. When Leah went into labor, Taylor, sky high from K-State's big win over its in-state rival and losing his mind over the soon-to-be birth of their third child, drove Leah to the hospital in their purple jeep. In the back of the jeep was the Governor's Cup Trophy, given annually to the winner of the Sunflower Showdown between K-State and Kansas — a trophy that K-State has now kept in its possession for 17 consecutive years.
"We beat KU, I took that trophy home, Leah went into labor, and she said, 'You better not bring that trophy!'" Braet says. "I left her hospital room and said, 'I have to go get the car seat.' I went to the car and brought back the trophy. I took the trophy into the lobby, and all the nurses laughed and took selfies with it. Then I brought the trophy into Leah's room and she rolled her eyes. I was like, 'Come on, you rolled into the hospital in a purple jeep with the trophy in the back, you knew how this was going to go down!'"
Braet lets out a bellowing laugh. For all Braet's endearing qualities that make him one of the most likable people at K-State, his laugh is perhaps second-to-none in the annals of Wildcat lore.
"I'm going to have a dang good time, and I think everyone knows that," Braet says. "I'm going to be the loudest person in the room, and I also know when to shut up — sort of. But if you ain't laughing, you ain't living. I want everyone to have fun. I'm relationship driven."
Taylor wasn't college football caliber as a player, but he so yearned to be a part of the game that he loved all his life that Steve helped him secure a spot as a student assistant coach on the Butler coaching staff. Taylor helped coach the linebackers during the Grizzlies' 2003 National Championship run, and he helped with the defensive ends and linebackers in 2004 and 2005 as Butler won conference championships all three seasons.
"At Buter, dad was like, 'If you want to get into this business, this is what's going to be asked of you — the time requirement and the effort and accountability. You have to be on time to early by 15 to 30 minutes for everything. You have to care about it and spend extra time,'" Braet says. "Dad used to tease me that if I wanted to be a ball coach, I couldn't get married, because I wouldn't have time for it, because I'd have to be available 24-7. Years later, we joked at Christmas that Leah proposed to me, and she asked my dad for permission to marry me. We always joke about that. Yeah, I knew I wanted to be a part of a team and something I could represent, and being at Butler with really good out-of-state players made me appreciate Kansas more, because we're overlooked, and that's OK, but some of that drove me to be like, 'Why can't we do it with in-state guys and do it the right away,' and you can't just have that, but it makes you appreciate more when guys come here."
Braet shot his shot at the Division I level and new K-State head coach Ron Prince gave Braet his chance and hired him to the football staff prior to the 2006 football season. Times were vastly different back then.
"I was very blessed that Coach Prince gave me the opportunity," Braet says. "There were only three student coaches and there were two graduate assistants on the staff. Now you look at our staff, and we have a whole scouting department and a whole recruiting department. Back then, we had one recruiting guy, so I helped with special teams and recruiting. It's crazy that I did both of those duties at the same time compared to now."
Braet graduated from K-State with a social science degree in 2008.
"I didn't grow up a K-Stater," he says. "I spent every Saturday at my dad's games and following my dad's players. I came to K-State and fell in love, which is scary to think, and I probably love K-State now more than I do football, but football is the way to put Kansas State the farthest on the map, because football is the front porch to the university, the most visible product there is.
"I always recruited and hosted. Even when I was at Butler, whenever we had a big-time recruit, I hosted him. I always sold the program. Dad would say, 'I have a defensive end on campus and you're hosting him. Get him to commit.' I'd say, 'OK, I'll get it done.' I've always been a relationship person. During COVID, I'd go to the grocery store just to talk to someone because I was so bored. I love talking to people."
While Klein and his assistant coaches, and the support staff, and the scouting staff, and recruiting staff, and operations staff put together super-impressive official visits for prospects and their families over the past month, the words that come from Braet's mouth do make a sizable impact.
"I just told the kids to come be a part of what Collin is building," Braet says. "He almost tasted it as a player, and almost tasted it as an assistant coach, and now he has the chance to taste it as a head coach. There's no other way than winning. There's no other way. Right now, we're putting together the best recruiting class in K-State history. Right now, we're trying to take a step up, and that's all you're trying to do every year. Collin is built for this moment and for this stage, and we need the right players, because the time is now.
"Obviously, it plays a part if you can get the best players in the country, but they still have to buy in and have the want and the desire to work for it."
Braet opens up about the past few crazy months.
"It was making up for lost time because as soon as the coaches were hired, they went on the road recruiting, and we sent out 10 coaches and we had to make sure these 10 coaches were going to see guys we had relationships with," Braet says. "Then after that, it was a dead period before spring ball, and then spring ball came, and we had on weekdays — Tuesday and Thursday — probably five to 10 kids every day, and then on weekends we had about 40 kids every weekend. Then as soon as spring ball was over, we hit the road recruiting for four weeks.
"Recruiting travel is crazy. These days, you get 16 coaches on the road, but you only get 140 total days of recruiting by your coaches, so you have to divide the days up among 16 coaches. So, some coaches might get two days on the road, five days on the road or 10 days on the road. You just have to make sure you're putting coaches in the right spots so you're not wasting time. It's way different than the old-school days of putting 10 coaches on the road for 15 days each, and you could hit every school in the state of Kansas, and you could do those old-school touches you used to. Now you have to maximize your time and effort. As soon as we finished travel in the middle of May, we had official visits in June, where we had as many 17 kids on a weekend — Thursday night through Sunday every single weekend. Then as soon as they left Sunday, we rolled into football camps.
"We were in football camp from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. each of the last three Sundays. Probably the last week was the biggest grind because Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we did something we'd never done before, which was hold a team camp with six high schools. Next year, we're going to build it to be even better. That's one of the coolest things we've ever done."
If there was a rare, quiet moment of pause inside the head of Braet, whose gears rapidly spin, and whose voice demands the attention of prospects, their families, and their coaches, the moment came one day in June.
"I got emotional introducing Collin to all the recruits on the final day of official visits," Braet says. "It's a blessing each time. I don't want to pinch myself because I don't want to wake up from the dream I'm living. It's so awesome, and it's a friendship, and a love. Once in a while, Collin and I get off the phone, and we'll say, 'Hey, man, I love you. I love you, too.' Because it is so deep and has been for so long and you know each other so well that you'll do anything you can for each other.
"Just being able to be a part of his journey and to talk about him and my relationship with him, I'm just very blessed to have him. It's just like when Shalin and Leah saw each other getting off the plane at the Manhattan airport the day of Collin's formal introduction as head coach, they teared up, and Shalin is running to Leah and they're just hugging, and so excited. Yeah, it's been a tremendous journey, and all of it has been a blessing."
The question, of course, becomes this: How much longer? How much longer will Braet, with all that he does and represents, remain a part of the K-State football program in this ever-changing world of collegiate athletics?
"I have to pass 40 years," he says. "I have to catch my old man, who had 42 years. I have to catch him. That's what I want. Everybody asks, 'What drives you?' I say, 'A lot of people think about a national title, but I'd love nothing more than to be given a purple coat for the K-State Athletics Hall of Fame. No place else, just here, because this has been my home, the place where we're raising our own kids is the same place where we've raised all these players.'"
He continues.
"This Class of 2027 should be the best recruiting class in K-State history," he says. "Being the longest-tenured dude in recruiting for a certain school is amazing. It says a lot to the kids I recruit. I can tell parents that I've been at K-State longer than their kids have been alive, and it's because of the community, the school, and it's special, and a bond, and truly a family. I tell them, 'I can put 20 years behind it.' They say, 'So this is really it.' And I say, 'Yeah, this is it, this is home, this is what drives me, this is my thing.' That puts a little exclamation point on recruiting. A lot of other places, recruiting guys are there for two years and then onto the next one.
"When football is done, I'll probably still be here. I don't envision myself leaving, either. I probably shouldn't say that because I'll never get a raise because they'll know I'll stay, but K-State is my home."
Braet laughs.
Braet grows quiet and pauses.
"Someday, football will end," he says, finally, "and I hope to stay here, and keep representing this place the right way."
Wednesday, June 24
Tuesday, June 23
Monday, June 22
Monday, June 22
