New Kansas State coach Ron Prince wants to be remembered for his achievements and not his race as he takes over for the retired Bill Snyder.
“People ask what it’s like to be a black coach. I’ve never been any other kind,” Prince said at a news conference Monday. “Hopefully, the only color they’ll be talking about from this day forward is purple.”
“I started thinking about this job when I was 3 or 4,” said Prince, who grew up just 20 miles away in Junction City. “This was something that had obviously been on my mind a long time – but I didn’t think this would happen this year, this soon.”
Prince becomes Kansas State’s first black head coach, the Big 12 Conference’s only black head coach and the fourth active black coach in NCAA Division I-A – joining UCLA’s Karl Dorrell, Washington’s Tyrone Willingham and Mississippi State’s Sylvester Croom.
Athletic director Tim Weiser said Sunday, “In our minds, Coach Prince clearly meets all of those criteria, among many others, and we are extremely excited to be announcing him as our head football coach.”
Snyder led Kansas State to a 5-6 mark this season. He took the Wildcats from being the nation’s only 500-loss team in 1989 to 11 straight winning seasons through 2003, when the they won the Big 12 title. But the turnaround did not happen immediately, and hopefully, Prince will not be held to a higher standard than his predecessor.
In 1989, Snyder’s first year, the Wildcats won just one game. They won five games in 1990 and six in 1991. In year four of the contract, K-State won seven games and had a winning record in the Big 8. Price received a five-year deal, and unlike Willingham at Notre Dame, he should be given the duration of the contract to return K-State to the ranks of national powers.
