Minnesota interim athletic director Beth Goetz named Tracy Claeys, the Gophers’ associate head coach and defensive coordinator, as interim head coach. The years of experience as Kill’s right-hand men qualifies them to keep the Gophers on the track Kill set them on.
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“This is a tough moment for me and our players and our coaches”, an emotional Kill said at a press conference on Wednesday morning. I was at practice yesterday after having two seizures. The Golden Gophers were still reeling from the failed Tim Brewster experiment when he took over, and they went just 3-9 in Kill’s first season. It was the epileptic seizures that sidelined him for seven games in 2013, and eventually took their toll and forced Kill to step aside. He has been in remission since. He led Minnesota to back-to-back 8-5 seasons and, in 2014, its first New Year’s Day bowl since 1962.
“The Foundation is proud of Coach Kill and stands with him in his quest to rise above seizures”, the organization said in a statement released Wednesday. Things that he’s gone through and overcome to do what he loves, and to be able to do what he loves, and there’s nobody who gets as much enjoyment out of doing what they do than Jerry Kill does.
The Golden Gophers (4-3, 1-2 Big Ten) will be without their head coach for the first time in more than two years when they host the No. 15 Wolverines (5-2, 2-1) at 7 p.m. Saturday at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
A tearful, somber Kill announced his resignation Wednesday morning as the head football coach at the University of Minnesota. “I have tremendous respect for the coaching job he has done at Minnesota and even more so for the manner in which he has done it”, Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz said in a statement. But that shouldn’t take away from where Kill took this program. Southern Illinois went 1-10 in Kill’s debut campaign in 2001 before improving to 12-2 by his seventh season, reaching five straight FCS playoffs and winning three conference titles.
Kill was 29-29 at Minnesota.
He energized the Gophers program and became a face for the fight against epilepsy through his perseverance.
Boyum said Kill’s public battle broke through the stigma of epilepsy and for that they are forever grateful.
Kill came to the conclusion that living a healthy life with epilepsy and building a program to the best of his ability were mutually exclusive paths.
“There’s no doubt Coach Kill helped set the stage for where we are as a program right now”, Carey said. I don’t want to coach from the press box. You know all about the struggles, but I did my best the change.
Perhaps, as Kill speculated, he’ll find an answer through Chasing Dreams.
“You all know about the struggles”, Kill said.
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He was pleased with this week’s game plan for Michigan, yet he knew as he walked off the field what his heart-wrenching decision would be and that he was done coaching. I like the pleated ones, but don’t tell (my wife) Sarah I said that. You have to get a hit, but you have to stand back up and sometimes you get up and you have to go to a different position. “We’re allowed to have another coach now to move the staff around and have another on-the-field coach to replace Coach Kill”.
