Tempe, Ariz. ? Ron Backman used to be able to see Kansas State play football — and take a friend — for the price of a roast beef sandwich, fries and a soft drink.

Backman’s Fiesta Bowl ticket cost him $85 — but that didn’t deter him and the thousands of Wildcats fans who showed up to cheer their team on in Friday night’s game against Ohio State.

Many, like Backman, remember Kansas State’s record of futility before head coach Bill Snyder arrived in Manhattan, Kan. They don’t mind paying the price of the Wildcats’ success since then.

“It’s kind of our payback to Snyder,” said E.J. Sisk, a retired economic development officer from Manhattan.

Backman, now a microbiology manager for a biotech firm in North Carolina, arrived at Kansas State in 1988 — a year before Snyder took over and gradually built the Wildcats into winners.

“Before we started winning, you could go to Arby’s down by Aggieville (the bar district near campus) and if you bought a combo, you’d get two tickets to the game,” he said. “Nobody wanted to go.”

Shari Koehn, an elementary school teacher from Liberal, Kan., graduated from Kansas State in 1991. She also remembered sparse crowds.

“My parents came up for Parent’s Day, and we went to the game, and I could lie down on the bench to watch,” she said. “There was nobody else around.”

‘Traveling well’

Clearly, things have changed. Kansas State, which averaged fewer than 21,000 fans at home games in 1988, now routinely sends that many, or more, to its postseason appearances.

Bowl selection committees call that “traveling well” — and few teams travel as well as the Wildcats.

Backman, Sisk and Koehn were among a throng of around 14,000 who attended a pep rally Thursday at Wells Fargo Arena. About 22,500 people bought tickets through the school, sports information director Garry Bowman said, with another 7,000 to 8,000 expected to buy them from other sources.

“The fan support has always been great for our bowl games,” defensive end Andrew Shull said. “You look up in the stands and see all that purple, it’s almost like a home game.”

Win or lose, Kansas State fans love their Wildcats here — and in Tucson, San Diego, Dallas, and everywhere else Kansas State has played in the postseason.

Crazy for the ‘Cats

Sometimes, the intensity of that love surprises even the man responsible for the program’s resurgence.

After Kansas State’s 52-7 rout of Wyoming in the 1993 Copper Bowl — Kansas State’s first bowl under Snyder and only the second in school history — the coach got an unexpected visitor at his office in Manhattan.

Snyder recounted the story recently:

“A gentleman asked if he could visit with me. He was from Dodge City (Kan.), I think. He said, ‘I went to the bowl game, and I want you to know that was the single greatest experience of my entire life.’

“I said to him, ‘You’ve got a family. You’ve had a career. There’s an awful lot of extremely positive and important things going on in your life and I don’t want to accept the responsibility for that ball game being the single most important thing in your life.’ And I meant that.”

Still, Snyder said, “I appreciated what he said immensely. He was very representative of so many people that have gone through the K-State experience.”

Reunions

For most fans, the Fiesta Bowl — like all the others — provided a chance to gather with family and friends, to commiserate over the bad years and to celebrate all the good years since then.

“I waited 45 years for all this,” said Bud Backman, Ron Backman’s father and a retired farmer from Vermillion, Kan., who has followed Kansas State football since the 1960s. “I’m not going to miss out on this now, because I haven’t got another 45 years to wait.”

And if a bowl hero from years past shows up, so much the better.

Former quarterback Jonathan Beasley ran for three touchdowns in Kansas State’s 24-20 Holiday Bowl win over Washington in 1999. A year later, he threw two TD passes and ran for another score to lead the Wildcats to a 35-21 Cotton Bowl victory over Tennessee.

Beasley, who now coaches his old high school team in his hometown of Glendale, was among those attending the pep rally.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “I’m walking around my town, and all these Kansas State people who’ve seen me play are coming up to me and thanking me for what I’ve done.”

As if on cue, a woman darted out of the crowd and grabbed Beasley’s hand.

“Thank you,” she said, “for all you’ve done for us.”