Known as a great offensive mind and developer of quarterback talent, Matt Wells boasts over 25 years of coaching experience. He is in his second season at K-State, serving as the offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach, and associate head coach since 2025. Last season, he served as co-offensive coordinator. Wells hit the ground running in his first season on staff, tutoring Avery Johnson to a school-record 25 touchdown passes, while his sophomore signal caller ranked fifth in school history in...
Jun 23, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Shanele Stires graduated from Salina Central (Kan.) High School in 1990. That is not only Fitz's alma mater, but he also covered high school sports for his hometown newspaper that year, watching Stires excel in multiple sports for the Salina Central Mustangs. After high school, Stires attended Kansas State on a track scholarship but then headed to Cloud County Community College after a year so she could try her hand at college basketball. It worked out perfectly, with Stires returning to Manhatt...
Jun 16, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Hunter Woodhall is an American track and field Paralympian and the first double amputee to earn a Division I NCAA track scholarship, and is married to fellow Olympian and Kansas State assistant track and field coach Tara Davis-Woodhall. In 2024, Woodhall won his first Paralympic gold medal in the men's 400m T62 event in Paris. He also won a bronze medal in the same event at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. Born in Georgia while his father was serving in the military. Woodhall's parents decided to amp...
Jun 09, 2025•43 min
Scot Pollard grew up in San Diego, and after considering Arizona as his college basketball destination, he chose Kansas so he could play for Coach Roy Williams. After a stellar college career, Pollard was selected as the 19th pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, going to the Detroit Pistons. Pollard played for five NBA franchises during his 10-year professional career, with the bulk of his career spent with the Sacramento Kings and the Indiana Pacers. Except for his first season, Pollard appeared in the ...
Jun 02, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Chris Klieman followed the legendary Bill Snyder as Kansas State's football coach in 2019. In less than three months, Klieman will kick off his seventh season as head coach of the Wildcats. The K-State program has played in a bowl five of Klieman's first six seasons, with only the chaotic pandemic season in 2020 being the exception. Overall, he is 48-28 as K-State's coach and has won nine or more games each of the last three seasons, winning a Big 12 championship and two bowl games in that stret...
May 26, 2025•59 min
Troy Hartman's story is full of tragedy and hope. His story of alcoholism and the horror it brought to his life is powerful, and it's one he shares so people can understand the darkness in which he traveled until the power of forgiveness changed his life. That forgiveness grew from the death of a close friend while attending College of the Ozarks in Branson, Missouri, where he went to a local church and began to serve. In 2003, Troy had the opportunity to help start North Point Church in Springf...
Aug 26, 2024•59 min
Jareem Dowling is entering his third season at Kansas State after being the first announced member of head coach Jerome Tang's inaugural coaching staff on March 29, 2022. Dowling was part of a coaching staff that helped reenergize a K-State program in 2022-23, guiding the Wildcats to their third-highest win total (26) and a thrilling run to the Elite Eight despite being picked last in the Big 12 preseason poll after three consecutive losing seasons. The 26 wins are the third-most in school histo...
Aug 19, 2024•58 min
Pete Mundo is currently the morning show host and assistant program director at 710AM KCMO in Kansas City, Missouri. Additionally, Mundo owns and operates an independent Big 12 sports digital media outlet, Heartland College Sports. Mundo, a graduate of Villanova University, had previous stops at CBS Sports Radio, Fox News Radio, and Sports Illustrated, and even spent time in Oklahoma, where he gained a love for Big 12 Conference sports. *** Tim Fitzgerald is a sports journalist who writes, does ...
Aug 12, 2024•59 min
Bud Elliott graduated from Florida State University in 2007 and then proceeded to law school at the University of Alabama, graduating in 2010. After that, Elliott quickly took a career turn into sports, launching an independent Florida State site that quickly joined the SB Nation network. His time running Tomahawk Nation led him into the world of college football recruiting — acting as SB Nation's recruiting analyst until his eventual departure in 2020. Elliott moved to 247Sports Network in 2020...
Aug 05, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Jill Shields, a 23-year veteran of the K-State Athletics Department, was promoted to Deputy Athletics Director in 2017 after serving as Executive Associate Athletics Director for Student Services since 2015. In her role, Shields oversees the daily internal operation of the entire athletics department and also serves as the department's senior woman administrator. She oversees the day-to-day operation of the football program while also serving as the sport administrator for women's basketball and...
Jul 29, 2024•48 min
Travis Geopfert was named K-State's seventh full-time Director of Track and Field/Cross Country by Director of Athletics Gene Taylor on July 11, 2024. Geopfert was a four-time National Assistant Coach of the Year during two stints at Arkansas across 12 years, with 22 total years of experience also at Tennessee, Northern Iowa and Central Missouri. At Arkansas with the men's team, he was a part of two NCAA Championship teams (2013 indoor and 2023 indoor), 21 top-10 NCAA team finishes and 25 SEC Ch...
Jul 22, 2024•43 min
K-State Alumni Association president and CEO Amy Button Renz '76, '86 retired on June 30, 2023, from the K-State Alumni Association after more than 45 years of service to Kansas State University. Renz began her career with the Alumni Association in 1977. She was named president and CEO in 1994, becoming the first female alumni director in the Big Eight and later the Big 12 conference. Renz was instrumental in the creation of many programming efforts, including the Student Alumni Board and the K-...
Jul 15, 2024•47 min
Tim Weiser served as the Director of Athletics at Kansas State University from 2001 to 2008. During his tenure, K-State became the first Big 12 institution to win conference championships in three top-tier sports in a single year (2003-04; football, volleyball, women's basketball). The athletic department generated record revenues in the areas of fundraising and corporate sponsorships under Weiser's direction. Weiser then joined the Big 12 as Deputy Commissioner in 2008. He serves as the Chief O...
Jul 08, 2024•51 min
The National Bio and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) will soon be in operation in Manhattan, Kansas. Its construction, which took more than 10 years, was recently completed. The facility was turned over to the USDA, which will operate NBAF. NBAF enhances the U.S. government's research, development, testing, and evaluation countermeasure capabilities by establishing a modern, integrated foreign animal and zoonotic disease research, development, and testing facility. Overseeing the construction was a...
Jul 01, 2024•56 min
Spearheading a defense that has been one of the best in the Big 12 over the last three seasons, Joe Klanderman enters his sixth season at Kansas State in 2024 and his fifth as the defensive coordinator. In addition to running the defense, Klanderman also tutors the Wildcat safeties as he has done so since arriving in Manhattan in 2019. Leading a dynamic shift in defensive philosophy before the 2021 season, Klanderman implemented a three-man front for the first time in his career, and the returns...
Jun 24, 2024•59 min
Colonel Greg McLean serves in the United States Army as an Armored Cavalrymen. McLean was commissioned as an Armor officer in 2001 at OCS after three years prior service as a 19K Armor Crewman. After attending Kansas State, McLean graduated from the Armor Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, Cavalry Leaders Course, Command and General Staff College, the School of Advanced Military Studies. Col. McLean most recently attended the U.S. Army War College. Before he arrived at Fort Moore in Georgia, wh...
Jun 17, 2024•1 hr 1 min
One of the top offensive line coaches in the country, Conor Riley, is in his sixth season at K-State in 2024, tutoring the Wildcats' offensive front and first serving as the program's offensive coordinator. He was the interim coordinator for Kansas State's victory over NC State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl before being elevated to the full-time role in early January. A 2003 University of Nebraska Omaha graduate, Riley began his collegiate coaching career at UNO as a student and graduate assistant from ...
Jun 10, 2024•1 hr 2 min
GoPowercat publisher Tim Fitzgerald was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2018, with his original prognosis predicting death before age 60. On the day of his 60th birthday, Fitz recorded the first episode of his Life of Fitz podcast's fifth season with the doctor who performed his prostatectomy on July 3, 2018. Rosso has expertise in treating surgical removal of the bladder, kidney removal surgery, and prostate cancer, among other conditions. Dr. Rosso graduated from the University of Kansas Sch...
Jun 03, 2024•45 min
Dennis Dodd has covered college football for CBS Sports since it was CBS SportsLine in 1998. Prior to that, Dodd worked alongside Fitz publishing college sports magazines for Kansas State, Missouri and Kansas. In 1998, they both sought a different direction, with Fitz and his wife, Becky, establishing Spirit Street Publishing (the publishing company behind GoPowercat.com and formerly Powercat Illustrated), and since joining CBS, Dodd has covered nearly every BCS/CFP postseason in the championshi...
Aug 26, 2023•43 min
John Kurtz went directly from being a Kansas State student to joining the media covering Kansas State athletics as a member of the KMAN 1350-AM sports staff, covering K-State and Manhattan area sports. John eventually moved up to sports director and established himself as one of the leading voices in the K-State sports media. Everyone recognized John's talent and knew he would move on, but after 10-plus years in Manhattan, the breaks never fell his way. So, John Kurtz left traditional media and ...
Aug 19, 2023•1 hr 5 min
A Lenexa native who grew up watching channel 5, Marleah Campbell has been with KCTV5 since the summer of 2022. She returned to her hometown after starting her TV career at WIBW, the CBS affiliate in Topeka, where she served as sports director, where she and Fitz quickly became friends. Prior to that, Marleah played Division I basketball at the University of Wyoming. A four-time Academic All-Mountain West team member, her passion for equity in sports led her to write an award-winning master’s the...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Earlier this summer, the K-State Alumni Association board of directors named Adam Walker, Ed.D., ’04, ’09 as the Association’s next president and CEO. Walker began his duties on July 24. In this role, Walker is responsible for the overall management and strategic planning of the Alumni Association. Walker is the staff liaison for the Association’s board of directors and serves as secretary of the board. Additionally, he is a part of the Association’s fundraising team. Prior to returning to his a...
Aug 02, 2023•52 min
Mike Clark, former Kansas State baseball coach, retired from his duties in the K-State athletics department at the end of June. Clark coached K-State baseball from 1986 until 2003, winning 432 games for a program that was barely funded. For 16 of Clark’s 17 seasons, K-State baseball only had a field. Tointon Stadium was built prior to his final season, but for those first 16, there was no stadium, no locker rooms, so plumbing and barely a budget. After retiring, Coach Clark found himself learnin...
Jul 26, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Fitz needed to book a guest on short notice so he pulled the card out of his back pocket he's been saving and called his sister, Amy. Amy Fitzgerald is a Kansas State graduate with both her undergrad and master's in industrial engineering. She eventually decided that she wanted to get into medicine, and instead of heading to medical school at age 29, she went to physician assistant school at Wichita State. After many years of working as a PA in area emergency rooms, she returned to school to ear...
Jul 19, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Award-winning anchor and reporter Jeff Vaughn serves as an evening news anchor KCBS and KCAL in Los Angeles since November 2015. Vaughn joined KCAL/KCBS news team after serving as an anchor at WXYZ-TV, the ABC affiliate in Detroit, since January 2013. A four-time Emmy winner, he won a California Emmy for anchoring Wildfire Relief in 2017, a Michigan Emmy in 2013 for anchoring breaking news, a Texas Emmy in 2012 for anchoring continuing coverage and a Michigan Emmy in 2006 for Best Large-Market A...
Jul 12, 2023•59 min
Josh Eilert grew up in Osborne, Kansas, and then played basketball at Cloud County Community College and Kansas State. When Bob Huggins came to K-State in 2006, Eilert was ready to head into his second year as a graduate assistant coach for the program. Huggins kept Eilert on, and when he left K-State after one season to head home to West Virginia, his alma mater, Eilert went him. After 16 seasons at Huggins’ side. Serving under numerous titles, when Huggs retired suddenly this summer after a DU...
Jul 05, 2023•50 min
Pat Bosco, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., came to Kansas State as a student, became student body president a few years later, and after graduation began to work for K-State. He served the university until his retirement in 2019, working under five university Presidents in a career that culminated in the titles of Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students. In 2004, the Student Governing Association named the plaza outside the K-State Student Union in his honor. It was the only time in the...
Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Coach Jerome Tang promised to elevate the Kansas State basketball program when he was hired and he certainly kept that promise in his first season. Picked for last in the Big 12 Conference, Tang's Wildcats' competed for the conference title and then ended the season with a run to the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight, losing to Florida Atlantic one step short of the Final Four. It was remarkable for Tang, who was selected as the 2023 Werner Ladder Naismith Men's College Coach of the Year after guidi...
Jun 21, 2023•50 min
Coach Bill Snyder doesn't really need much of an introduction. After all, he was the engineer of the greatest turnaround in college football history and is now part of the College Football Hall of Fame. Coach Sndyer arrived in Manhattan in 1988 after serving as the offensive coordinator under another legend, Hayden Fry, at Iowa. His long career, separated by a failed three-year retirement in the middle, started in 1989 and by the 1998 season, Snyder had his Wildcats in contention for a national ...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Chris Klieman arrived at Kansas State in December of 2018 after winning four national titles in his five seasons at FCS-level North Dakota State. The athletics director who hired him at NDSU was Gene Taylor, who in the spring of 2017 became the new AD at K-State. Taylor went through the search process and kept coming back to Klieman, not just as a coach who would win football games in the Big 12, but one who could deftly take the reins from the legendary Bill Snyder, fit into the K-State culture...
Jun 07, 2023•55 min
