In recalling the days before 1986 when Jon Wefald took over as the 12th president of Kansas State University, K-State at Salina Dean Dennis Kuhlman mentions that "Silo Tech" was a common nickname for K-State.

A small, hick school. Hardly an accurate description, but still, not flattering.

Then came Wefald and the "revolution," Kuhlman told Journal reporter Michael Strand on Monday, the day Wefald announced that he'll step down as president at the end of the upcoming academic school year.

Since that time 23 years ago when Wefald arrived and announced that "good enough was no longer good enough," the university has made significant strides, many of them well-chronicled.

n Enrollment went from about 17,000 to more than 23,000

n K-State leads the nation's public universities in the total number of Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater and Udall scholarship winners.

n In 1991, Kansas College of Technology in Salina merged with K-State to give us K-State at Salina.

Wefald has accomplished much else, but one of our favorites is how he helped transform the school's athletic programs, specifically football.

When Wefald arrived in Manhattan, K-State football's program was the worst program in college football. The Mildcats were everyone's favorite homecoming date. Toothless, smiling, friendly Willie the Wildcat wouldn't have hurt anyone. Couldn't have hurt anyone.

Coach Bill Snyder is rightly credited with transforming the Mildcats into the Powercats, and K-State's sorry football program into a national power.

But remember this: It's likely that all of Snyder's hard work would have gone for naught without Wefald. It takes an administration's support to make anything a success, and that's especially true for athletics, which requires huge commitments of money.

For Wefald, that commitment was worth it.

"He'd be the first to say it's not right that a star athlete makes more than a Nobel Prize winning physicist -- but that's the way it is," Kuhlman said.

"People see a college through its athletic portal," Kuhlman said. "Not only did the athletic program turn around, but people now recognize the academic excellence as well."

Well said, and for Wefald, well done.

-- Ben Wearing

Executive Editor