Jerry Kill retirement from Minnestota leaves big hole in Big Ten (Video)

Jerry Kill had the Minnesota Golden Gophers on the way up in the Big Ten, and his sudden retirement due to health concerns leaves a gaping hole in a host of good coaches in that conference.

The University of Minnesota announced today that head football coach Jerry Kill was retiring due to health reasons, and that associate head coach Tracy Claeys has been named interim head coach by interim athletic director Beth Goetz.

Claeys has been a member of Kill’s staff for 21 years, and he served as Minnesota’s head coach for seven games in 2013 when Kill stepped aside for health reasons.

The loss of Kill is not only a blow to the Golden Gophers, but to the Big Ten as well.

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Minnesota isn’t regarded as one of the power programs in the Big Ten, but Kill had been slowly building it to that point. He took over the Gophers in 2011 after several losing seasons by former head coach Tim Brewster, and was charged with turning the Minnesota football program into a contender in the Big Ten.

After just one losing season, Kill had the Gophers winning, and playing in three straight bowl games. He did it with an approach to the game that was as no-nonsense and tough as he was himself.

The 54-year-old Kill has been plagued by health concerns for quite a while – dealing with and beating cancer in 2005, and then being diagnosed with epilepsy in the same year. It was the epileptic seizures that sidelined him for seven games in 2013, and eventually took their toll and forced Kill to step aside.

Kill was emotional at the press conference announcing his retirement, saying “I still want to coach. I was at practice yesterday after having two seizures. I probably wasn’t supposed to be there. I went through a bad situation two years ago and I’m headed right back there. I haven’t slept.

“[I told the players] you can’t do football forever…i told them I loved them, I care about them.”

Kill is one of those guys…the ones that fans in other programs complain about…a good guy who runs a clean program and takes steps to make sure his players learn life lessons, school lessons and football lessons. He was embraced by the Minnesota community, and will have an enduring impact on that football program.

In the Big Ten, coaches like Kill are exactly what’s needed, and he’s one of the guys who helped bring the conference back to some football respectability over the past few seasons. Not only will Minnesota have to replace a head coach, but the Big Ten will miss having his name among the list of top coaches in the conference.

The Gophers didn’t win a national or even Big Ten title under Kill (and that’s not to say they wouldn’t have), but that wasn’t important. What was important was that Kill made the Gophers competitive, fun to watch, and had them winning big games.

The Minnesota football program will carry on, and Tracy Claeys will do a great job of finishing out the season with the team and will probably lead them to a bowl game. This team is good enough to do that. But replacing a stand-up guy like Kill who has such passion for the game and for his players will be a near impossible task.

The 31-year coaching career of the Kansas native and former Southwestern College linebacker began at Pittsburg State in 1985 where Kill was defensive coordinator, and included head coaching stops at Saginaw Valley State, Emporia State, Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois and then his final job at Minnesota.

Kill was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2014, and had the Gophers on their way to a fourth consecutive winning season in 2015.

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