Kansas State Wildcats surprise walk-on Taymont Lindsey with basketball scholarship

It was hard to identify the happiest person in the room when Kansas State basketball player Taymont Lindsey earned a scholarship during a team meeting earlier this week.

Was it Lindsey, the 5-foot-8 senior guard who has spent most of this season helping the Wildcats as an unheralded walk-on? Or was it his teammates, who screamed with excitement and rushed to hug Lindsey when they heard the news?

A strong argument could actually be made for Lindsey’s teammates. Even though Lindsey was blown away by the gesture from head coach Jerome Tang and he immediately called his parents to tell them the good news, he may not have been in that position without the rest of the K-State basketball team.

You see, Tang has been working to fill the scholarship void on K-State’s roster ever since Nae’Qwan Tomlin was dismissed from the team in December. When he struggled to find an impact transfer, K-State players came to Tang and suggested he stop his search. Why? Well, because they thought Lindsey deserved to be promoted to scholarship.

“That’s something that I would normally do anyhow,” Tang said of rewarding a walk-on with an available scholarship. “It was just really cool that some of the guys brought it up.”

Tang gave his blessing shortly after the start of the spring semester, but it was hard for the Wildcats to figure out the best way and time to present a scholarship to Lindsey. At first, they wanted to tell him while the team was on the road for a game at Houston. Lindsey is originally from Kerens, Texas and his family was going to be at the game. That seemed like a good opportunity.

But Lindsey got sick that weekend, so K-State decided to wait.

The time was finally right this week. K-State coaches decided to hand out a best-dressed award at a team meeting, and Lindsey was named a finalist. Then he was called to the front of the room along with other teammates. Assistant coach Marco Borne began eliminating contenders until Lindsey was the named the winner.

His prize: an envelope with a special note inside. When he read it, he realized that he was not only the best dressed player on the roster, he was also being given a scholarship for the rest of the semester.

Lindsey had no idea that was coming.

“We always do team awards and stuff like that,” Lindsey said. “I thought it was going to be another team award, which I would have been happy to receive if I won it. By I didn’t think I was going to get a scholarship. I thought it was going to be a certificate or something like that.”

When Lindsey read the announcement aloud his teammates jumped out of their seats and mobbed him at the front of the room.

The moment still feels surreal to him. Lindsey thought he was done with college basketball after he finished up his senior year across town at Manhattan Christian College last year. He was ready to pursue a career in coaching. But he decided to play one more year as a graduate transfer when Nate Awbrey, his former teammate and K-State manager, invited him to play for the Wildcats as a walk-on.

He never dreamed that would lead him to become a scholarship player for a Division I team.

“I honestly couldn’t believe it,” Lindsey said. “When I read those words that I was on scholarship my first reaction was how blessed I am to be here and be part of this program. Even before when I wasn’t on scholarship, I was just fine. It’s a blessing to receiver that scholarship. I’m very blessed.”

Tang was happy to reward Lindsey in a special way.

He deserved it. The entire K-State basketball roster thought so.

“He’s a very mature person and he sees the big picture,” Tang said. “He really embraces his role as a walk-on. He understands that he’s here to bring it every day at practice, but he is also like another coach’s voice in the locker room, very much like Nate was last year. And he can hoop, so the guys respect him.”