Cowboys’ Underwood goes ‘home’
Oklahoma State will visit Kansas State on Wednesday night, and it will be a homecoming of sorts for coach Brad Underwood. He played two seasons for the Wildcats in the 1980s.
MANHATTAN, KAN. — Oklahoma State coach Brad Underwood figures he’ll need to remind himself where to go Wednesday night, exiting the locker room at Kansas State’s Bramlage Coliseum and heading for the court.
“I’ve got to hang a left, instead of going right,” he said.
Left leads to the visitor’s bench.
And for Underwood, a former K-State player and assistant coach, that’s only the first step in what he knows will play out as a very different night in his return to what used to be home.
“Pregame at Kansas State was pretty special. It was as a player,” said Underwood, a 1986 graduate of Kansas State who played two seasons with the Wildcats. “You don’t forget those things. You don’t forget running onto the floor at Ahearn Fieldhouse. You don’t forget walking out at Bramlage.
“You always look to your right and the ‘Wabash Cannonball’ was being played and the students, all 5,000 of them, were going nuts. It always made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
Underwood returns this time as part of the enemy, for the first time. And yet, the hair on the back of his neck may still rise, if Bramlage delivers the kind of warm welcome most in Manhattan expect.
“I honestly think that when the PA guy announces that ‘Oklahoma State is coached by Brad Underwood,’ there will be a loud roar,” said Riley Gates, a KSU student who contributes to Powercat Illustrated, the Rivals.com site that covers Wildcats athletics.
“I think if they followed K-State basketball the last 10 years, they know who Brad Underwood is, and there will be cheering and applause.”
There’s a faction of K-State fans who wish Underwood was their coach, had been their coach since Frank Martin left for South Carolina in 2012. But Underwood, without Division I coaching experience on his résumé at the time, was passed over, despite his devotion and ties to the school, and his associate head coaching tag under Martin and his McPherson, Kan., roots.
So he followed Martin to South Carolina, finally got his Division I chance from there, winning wildly at Stephen F. Austin and leading to his landing at OSU.
Now Underwood takes his red-hot Cowboys into Bramlage seeking continued momentum and, interestingly, continued separation from K-State in the Big 12 standings at a time when Wildcat message boards contemplate the fate of current coach Bruce Weber and possible successors.
“Brad’s a Kansas guy,” said David Lackey, a friend and McPherson native. “And he’s our guy. That’s what K-State fans have been calling for since they hired Tom Asbury (in 1994).”
Meanwhile, Underwood has become OSU’s guy, leading a program revival with his style on the court and off, embedding himself in the community and rallying fans and students alike.
The Cowboys have won eight of their last nine, climbing out of the Big 12 basement into fifth place in the league standings and standing firmly in the NCAA Tournament projections of the major analysts.
Monday, the team bused up Interstate-35, then I-135 for Underwood’s first return to Manhattan in three years. The route went through McPherson, the coach’s boyhood home.
“We’ll see some familiar territory and relive some drives we’ve made over the years,” Underwood said fondly before departure.
Many from McPherson, including Underwood’s mother, will make the hour and a half drive northeast to Bramlage to experience Wednesday night.
McPherson is a K-State town, but also a Brad Underwood town.
“If Brad was to come to the golf course, he would be the star in the clubhouse,” Lackey said.
So, will the McPherson folks wear purple, or orange?
“I’m sure that my family better be wearing orange,” Underwood said. “I understand. I get it. I think there’s a lot of people who have conflicted interest. But that’s OK. And I understand that.
“It’s a 40-minute basketball game in the middle of the best league in the country. I’m going to go in there and fight. I know Bruce has his guys on an uptick, and they’re going to fight. Should be a heck of a college basketball game.”
Should be a heck of a return, filled with emotion.
“I left Kansas State with my head held very high,” Underwood said. “We had a lot of sweat equity in that program. I’m very proud of that.
“It’s what makes towns like Stillwater and Manhattan special. You have those relationships, and you have those friends. And they still are. It was a big part of our lives for six years when we lived there.
“It’ll be different. I’ll have a lot of friends there. That part will be special.”