Realistically, there’s only one person who can decide whether Jerry Kill will continue as the University of Minnesota’s head football coach — and that’s Jerry Kill.
It’s well-known by now that Kill suffered his fourth gameday seizure in just over two seasons with the Gophers during halftime of Saturday’s win over Western Illinois. Athletic Director Norwood Teague, who accompanied Kill to the hospital, was right on Monday to reassert his support for the ailing coach, telling reporters: “Jerry is our coach. We are 100 percent behind him, and I am 100 percent behind him.”
There may come a time when Kill and his family, perhaps with Teague’s concurrence, decide that the pressures of big-time coaching pose too great a risk to his health, or that his disability is standing in the way of restoring prominence to a football program that has been dismal for decades. But that time hasn’t come, and may never come.
