For K-State senior Xavier Sneed, every basketball game feels like a family reunion
When Xavier Sneed emerged from Kansas State’s locker room following the opening game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off on Monday, eight of his biggest fans were waiting for him in matching custom shirts that featured his name, image and number.
Sneed didn’t play well that night and the Wildcats suffered a disappointing loss against Pittsburgh, but the 6-foot-5 senior wing with NBA aspirations felt no pain afterward.
Having his family nearby always seems to make everything better.
“It definitely does,” Sneed said. “Knowing they have my back no matter what and always having their support is just great.”
Here’s the thing: there was nothing special about this postgame reunion. It happens all the time. Seriously. All … the … time.
Whenever Xavier Sneed plays a basketball game, his family is there. It doesn’t matter if he’s wearing home whites at Bramlage Coliseum, if he’s sporting road purples at the Erwin Center in Texas or making baskets at a neutral site in Florida. They follow him everywhere.
Name a college basketball venue and Sneed’s family has probably been there in large numbers, sitting behind the K-State bench and wearing matching shirts. They’ve cheered for him as far away as Sacramento and the Virgin Islands.
As Sneed begins his senior year with the Wildcats, he can recall only one time he played without a family member in attendance — a December road trip against Washington State when he was a sophomore.
“It’s a great feeling to know they are always there,” Sneed said. “I look for them before games and just smile knowing that I get to play in front of them.”
Planes, trains and automobiles
Lots of families devote time and money to college basketball, but Sneed’s support group is special. His parents aren’t wealthy, nor do they live particularly close to Manhattan. But they attend more games than most boosters with access to private jets.
Sneed’s parents, Erica (web developer) and Anthonie (delivery man), drive 11 hours round trip from their house in St. Louis for every home game, including exhibitions, and they often get creative for road games.
“Car, plane, train or bus,” Sneed’s father, Anthonie, said. “You name it and we’ve done it. About the only thing we haven’t tried is a boat.”
The hardest trip they’ve ever made happened when K-State qualified for the NCAA Tournament during Sneed’s freshman year. The Wildcats made the field of 68, but they had to win a play-in game in Dayton, Ohio before they earned a spot on the bracket.
So Sneed’s family drove from St. Louis to Dayton and watched K-State defeat Wake Forest. Then they took a Greyhound bus to Chicago and a train to the airport so they could board a plane to Sacramento for K-State’s first-round game against Cincinnati two days later. After that, they flew back to their car and eventually drove home.
Sneed’s mother, Erica, used to track the mileage they traveled for K-State basketball games, but it was at about that point the number grew out of control.
Now she counts down the games she has left. At minimum, she will watch her son play 27 more times before he graduates and moves on to a pro career.
Sometimes that number seems intimidating, like when she’s driving home from Manhattan immediately following a night game and still has to be at work by 6 a.m. the following morning.
Sometimes that number makes her sad, because she’s almost out of time. There’s no way she will be able to follow her son to every game after he leaves school.
“We are really big on family,” Erica said. “That was the main reason Xavier committed to K-State out of high school. They emphasize having a family atmosphere and didn’t try to overwhelm him during his recruiting visit. There was no big sales pitch. We loved that. It was his decision to make and we weren’t going to influence him in any way, but we had all made up our mind that we were K-State. I’m glad he made the right choice.”
Family matters
Sneed began playing in front of big family crowds immediately as a college athlete. K-State played a game at Saint Louis when he was a freshman, and more than 150 friends and family were in attendance. The following year, K-State played at Vanderbilt and seemingly everyone sitting behind the visitor’s bench wore a Sneed shirt.
His family has been following Sneed to games since the day he signed up for an AAU team, but they took their passion to the next level when he started wearing purple.
Why? They discovered they enjoyed rooting for their son’s teammates as much as they did their son. Look closely, and you will occasionally see Sneed’s parents wearing custom shirts that support Cartier Diarra or Mike McGuirl instead of Sneed.
Erica has become such a big fan that she plans to keep attending games (albeit not all of them) next season even after her son is out of college eligibility. She has already adopted freshman Montavious Murphy as her “nephew” and is excited to see incoming St. Louis recruits Luke Kasubke and Davion Bradford.
“At first, it was to see Xavier play because that is what we have always done,” Erica said. “We traveled all across the Midwest for games and as we got into it and we became invested in the team it became more about supporting the them than just Xavier. We started realizing that a lot of the kids didn’t have parents or family coming to games. We felt like we needed to be there to support the whole team, because guys were looking for us to be there.”
K-State players were happy to see Sneed’s family after Monday’s game.
One by one, they trickled out of the locker room to give Erica a hug and shake hands with Anthonie.
“Xavier’s parents and family are basically our second family,” K-State senior Pierson McAtee said. “Every single game they make it there throughout the season and they support not just Xavier and our team, but each of us individually. It is really amazing. They are special. They want the best for all of us.”
That is most obvious at true road games, such as Texas Tech, when they are the only K-State fans in the building. Sneed’s father has been known to put trash-talkers in their place.
Things will change next year when Sneed transitions to professional basketball. If he makes it to the NBA, there’s no way his parents can make all 82 games.
That’s one of the reasons Sneed returned to college after testing the pro waters last summer. He put his name in the NBA Draft as an early entrant and waited until the last possible moment to withdraw his name from consideration. He was torn about his future. But his mom wanted him to finish his education and he wanted to spend a year as K-State’s leader. Playing in front of family was an additional perk.
Sneed thinks he made the right decision.
That much was clear as he embraced his family Monday night and his worries began to melt away, almost like it was part of his daily routine. Win or lose, they are there for him after every game.