Beloved former Gopher football coach Jerry Kill started a new job at Southern Illinois a few weeks ago, but he has a new health concern. Kill, 56, talked to Sports Headliners by telephone this week from Carbondale, Illinois where he coached the Salukis to five FCS playoff appearances from 2001-2007.
Kill is about three weeks into his position as a special assistant to the Chancellor at SIU-Carbondale. His responsibilities include speaking on behalf of the school, increasing admissions and raising money from donors. “It’s a lot different (than) coaching football,” Kill said. “It’s a different pace.”
After 36 years of coaching high school and college football, Kill knew this winter he still wanted to work hard and help others but developments during the last six months convinced him and his family that the career path had to reroute from the profession he loves. As offensive coordinator at Rutgers last season, Kill had multiple seizures—more attacks from the Epilepsy that has targeted him for years. His body also took a severe blow after a sideline collision with an Eastern Michigan player during an early season game.
Kill, who resigned his position at Rutgers in December, has been told he is starting to lose short-term memory. He has experienced countless seizures since 2005, including those at Minnesota that contributed to his heartbreaking and unexpected resignation in mid-season of 2015. Those seizures have impacted Kill to the point where he now can’t make the kind of split-second decisions a coach must execute on the field during games.
“I can’t process like I used to,” Kill said. “In this job (at SIU) it’s good, because I got time to process.”
Medical authorities informed Kill and his wife Rebecca that it will be necessary to take future health precautions to give him the best chance of avoiding more short-term memory loss during the next five to 10 years. The information made it easier for Kill to decline recent football offers that would have involved him with recruiting or operations work, but not on the field Saturdays.
Despite his passion for football and developing young men, Kill knows the right decision was to accept the offer from SIU where he twice won national coach of the year awards and has long been familiar with the region and its people. The area has for years been the site of a family home. He and Rebecca have a residence on Lake Egypt, just a short drive from the Carbondale campus.
The house offers both recreation and peace of mind for Kill. He fishes and hunts there, and sometimes just sits back and enjoys the water and forest. “It’s just different,” Kill said about his new lifestyle that has him spending more time at home and not managing a college football program with all its demands.
But the story gets even better because grown daughters Krystal and Tasha live nearby. It’s been a long time since the family was in such close proximity, and now the group includes a three-month-old granddaughter—the first grandchild for him and Rebecca.
“Having those grandchildren, they’ll change your life,” Kill reflected. “No matter how bad things get…I can see her. If I am not close enough to her, I put her on FaceTime.”
Listening to Kill talk about enjoying life is reassuring to all his friends and admirers in Minnesota where he became one of the state’s most respected and popular coaches ever. He turned around a Gopher football program that was in dire shape by every standard when he arrived in Minneapolis in December of 2010. By the time he resigned as coach almost five years later he had led the Gophers to a January 1 bowl game for the first time since 1962. His 2013 and 2014 teams broke a losing streak against Nebraska that went back to 1960. Minnesota also defeated Michigan in 2014 for only the second time this century.
“Brick by Brick” was the program’s slogan and after two seasons Kill and his staff had the Gophers at .500 in Big Ten games. A year later Minnesota was 5-3, the program’s first winning conference record since 2003. He was named the 2014 Big Ten Coach of the Year.
But there was so much more to the success and the coach’s story. Players who were in freefall academically before Kill arrived improved their GPAs and started graduating. Off the field incidents involving misbehavior by players declined. Kill and Rebecca made a commitment to volunteerism in the community like few coaches ever have, including establishment of a fund to assist the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota.
Before that Kill and Rebecca started a cancer fund in Illinois to assist low income families. “I enjoy helping people,” said Kill who beat kidney cancer years ago. “I have had a lot of people come up and say, ‘Hey, you helped me.’ “
The cancer and epilepsy funds benefit from sales of Kill’s 2016 book Chasing Dreams: Living My Life One Yard at a Time. His autobiography is written to not only generate monies but to inspire readers including those who face adversity such as cancer and epilepsy.
Now Kill is also trying to raise money for Southern Illinois. “We got a lot of work to do because in the state of Illinois there is not a lot of money (for colleges),” he said.
Well, the Salukis have got the right man to raise money. Kill is a legend in Carbondale and has been revered wherever he has been. No matter the obstacles, he will proceed diligently and deliver results.
“Brick by Brick.”