Casey Alexander, wearing a lavender quarter-zip and a smile, grabbed the microphone at the 2026 Scott City Catbacker Nut Fry, and had the crowd of several hundred Kansas State fans in stitches as Alexander opened his first taste of western Kansas with quick-wit one-liners, revealing a jovial yet laid-back personality sure to win over audiences throughout the Sunflower State.
He tried out for the Kansas State baseball team. Joel Applebee, who grew up in Russell, Kansas, with a football and basketball in his hands, and who starred in the American Legion baseball league, entertained scholarship offers from community colleges, but he yearned for Manhattan, the education, the people, and the possibilities that could come upon graduation.
As the Kansas State football van crawled down North Stratford Lane on Monday morning, the towering, red-brick St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School affixed with a beautiful steeple topped with a spire dominated the horizon in Wichita, Kansas, offering a warm, welcome hug to Will Anciaux, who smiled as the van decelerated and finally stopped near the front doors to a place the Anciaux family has known for many years.
Phil Cunningham fancies himself as a sports historian. The Kansas State men's basketball assistant coach, wearing a Powercat polo shirt on Tuesday, recalled the Wildcats' rich basketball history, and called the rise of K-State football "the greatest success story in college football in my lifetime." The veteran coach, both as a head coach and as an assistant, has seen some things since he earned his master's degree in sports administration from Mississippi State in 1992.
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