2011 Gopher Football Preview
J
erry Kill can be forgiven for delaying an interview in order to meet with a football player who’s shown up in his office. “Sorry. Students come first,” says the first-year Gopher football coach as he sits down. Polite to the point of disarming (“yes ma’am, this is still a good time”), affable, and at times downright funny, on this day Kill is in no mood for small talk. He’s got a football program to build. Kill refuses to offer easy reassurances about that task. He cautioned his boss, Athletics Director Joel Maturi, “You know what, we may take a step back before we go forward.” He told hundreds of fans in Minnesota communities who turned out for his tour of the state: “I’d say we’ve taken infant steps toward getting better. Not baby steps. Infant steps.” And he pulled no punches when he said, after meeting with the team only days after he was hired last December, that he was shocked by how inattentive, out of shape, and lax about academics players were. He reportedly fumed to an assistant, “I tell you what, I can’t believe this! What the heck have we gotten ourselves into?” No wonder people love the guy. The native Kansan’s plainspoken, no-hype, what-you-see-is-what-you-get demeanor is a refreshing departure from the overpromising and underdelivering that frustrated fans during coach Tim Brewster’s
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four-year tenure, which ended with his firing midseason last year. Though the Gophers put together two impressive back-to-back upset wins under interim coach Jeff Horton in the final games of the season, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Minnesota needed to hire a big-time winner who would purge the program of its chronic mediocrity and restore pride in Minnesota football. The short, balding, bespectacled Kill was not the big name people envisioned. Eyebrows went up when Maturi journeyed to DeKalb, Illinois, and plucked Kill off the sidelines of Northern Illinois University, where he was preparing his Huskies—who had defeated the Gophers at TCF Bank Stadium earlier in the season—to play Fresno State in the Humanitarian Bowl. Who the heck, fans wondered, is Jerry Kill? Like Kill himself, the answers to that question are straightforward. He’s a family man whose face lights up at the mention of his wife of 25 years, Rebecca, and his two daughters, Krystal and Tasha. A survivor of kidney cancer who is grateful for every day he’s alive. A devoted son to a widowed mom who attends every game of his she can. A 50-year-old guy who frequently draws on lessons learned from his parents while growing up in tiny Cheney, Kansas. Most of all, Kill is an uncompromising coach who inspires uncommon loyalty. Don Weast, longtime sports information director at Emporia State, where Kill coached in 1999 and 2000, says of Kill, “He is the only coach I’ve ever worked with who I’d still run through a brick wall for.” Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema, who coached with Kill on former Gopher coach Glen Mason’s staff at Kansas in the 1990s, put it this way to a reporter after Kill was hired. “He is just a very true guy, and a very, very good football coach.” Kill is unfazed by the skepticism some fans expressed about his hire, because he’s heard it before. “I’ve had people roll their eyes when I first got a job. It’s happened everywhere I’ve been,” he drawls. “But I am who I am. I’m a hard worker, and I’ve been able to win.” Opposite page: head coach Jerry Kill. Right: defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys
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