William D. Snyder (born October 7, 1939) is a retired college football coach and former player. He served as the head football coach at Kansas State University from 1989 to 2005 and again from 2009 to 2018. Snyder initially retired from the position from 2006 to 2008 before being rehired. Snyder retired for the second time on December 2, 2018 and is serving as a special ambassador for the athletics department. Snyder was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2015 and won several conference and national coach of the year awards. He was the head coach at Kansas State for the program's 300th, 400th, and 500th all-time wins. In recognition of his contributions to the program, Kansas State has named its home field the Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium. Early life Snyder was born October 7, 1939, in St. Joseph, Missouri, the son of Tom, a traveling salesman, and Marionetta Snyder. His parents divorced when he was six; Snyder and his mother moved from Salina, Kansas to St. Joseph, Missouri, where they lived in a one-room, second-floor apartment, and Marionetta worked as a sales clerk in a department store while Bill's father lived in Omaha, Nebraska. Snyder attended Lafayette High School in St. Joseph, graduating in 1957. Snyder attended the University of Missouri for one year before enrolling at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, where he earned three letters in football for the Cardinals as a defensive back and halfback. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from William Jewell in 1963. He earned his Master of Arts degree from Eastern New Mexico University in 1965. Coaching career Snyder had his first collegiate coaching experience in 1966, serving as a graduate assistant coach for the USC Trojans. He next worked as a head coach for several years in the California high school ranks. He then served as an assistant football coach, and also coached swimming, at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, from 1974 to 1975. From 1976 to 1978, Snyder worked as an assistant coach at North Texas State, under Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry. Snyder and Fry moved together to the University of Iowa in 1979, with Snyder serving as Fry's offensive coordinator for the next 10 years. He helped Fry build Iowa from a program that had not had a winning season since 1961 into a two-time Big Ten champion. Snyder was hired