By David Mayo | The Grand Rapids Press The Grand Rapids Press
AP Photo Minnesota coach Jerry Kill
CHICAGO — Jerry Kill is the exception, and when the University of Minnesota hired him, plenty of people blanched.
One of the strangest phenomena in college football is that even the most successful NCAA Division II head coaches rarely make it to the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly called Division I, without an interim stop at that level as an assistant coach.
Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly, a former rival when he coached at Grand Valley State and Kill was at Saginaw Valley State, did it. Dennis Franchione, who coached Kill at a small college in Kansas and later coached at four major colleges including Alabama and Texas A&M, did it.
Few do.
“Almost impossible,” is how Kill described it.
Kill represents more than just himself, more than just Minnesota, as the kidney cancer survivor embarks on his 18th season as a head coach.
He represents all those coaches who couldn’t break through the way he did, didn’t want to get lost in the morass of big-time assistants, yet saw their journeys to major-college coaching derailed by failed rebuilding processes or unreasonable uncertainties about their abilities.
Chuck Martin, the former Grand Valley coach, couldn’t wait any longer after two national championships in six years and joined Kelly’s staff at Notre Dame last season. Division II coaches aspiring to a major job almost always choose that path.
That Kill went his own route, and advanced through the ranks without working for another head coach after his seven years in Division II, including five at Saginaw Valley, has been met with overt glee from many of his former competitors.
“I’ll guarantee you, when I got the job, there were a lot of those other guys calling, ‘Hey coach, congratulations, we’re proud of you, thanks for representing us,’ and so forth,” Kill said. “There are a lot of good coaches out there who aren’t getting the opportunity I do — maybe even deserve it more than I do — but I think they’re glad I got the chance.”
Kill said he thinks coaches outside the big-time mainstream get pigeonholed. Unimaginative employers can’t envision them succeeding at a different level of an otherwise identical job.
It has become a full-fledged glass ceiling that exceedingly few have shattered.
The name Mel Tjeerdsma was mentioned, and Kill’s face contorted at the idea of such a proven coach working 17 years at Northwest Missouri State, winning three national championships, and never leaving. Tjeerdsma was hired there the same year Kill was hired at Saginaw Valley, 1994. He was perfectly happy with his position in life. His peers elected him president of the American Football Coaches Association.
A couple of big-time schools flirted with Tjeerdsma, years ago. They didn’t hire him. Now, they never will. He retired after last season.
Kill called him “one of the best football coaches, period, of all time.”
“Mel Tjeerdsma probably deserves to have this job before I do,” Kill said. “Mel Tjeerdsma is a heck of a football coach. He could coach anywhere in the country and win.”
Kill almost chose the assistant’s route, too. He finished his second year at Emporia State (Kan.) in 2000, when Franchione took the Alabama job and Gary Patterson was promoted to head coach at Texas Christian. Patterson wanted Kill, who later stood as best man at his wedding, to join his TCU staff. But one day earlier, Kill had been called to interview for the Southern Illinois job.
Both Patterson and Franchione advised Kill to take the Division I-AA opening if offered, which he did. Kill won big at SIU, moved up to Northern Illinois, stayed three years, then took the Minnesota job.
To classify Kill as a career rebuilder is insufficient, because every one of the places he rebuilt has continued its success since his departure. Saginaw Valley and Grand Valley engaged in fierce fights for Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference supremacy. Grand Valley maintained a steady advantage, in part because former university president Arend Lubbers saw to it.
“He was so committed that he wouldn’t let you catch up,” Kill said. “You’d build something a little bit, and he’d build something bigger. He was a very competitive man. Those schools play awful good football.”
Kill said he would be hard-pressed to leave Grand Valley off the list of college football’s 30 best coaching jobs.
“I mean, Grand Valley, holy cow, they’ve been winning for a long time,” he said. “Those people know what they’re doing. They’ve made a commitment. Pretty impressive.”
When Tim Brewster was hired as Minnesota’s coach four years ago, his debut at the Big Ten Conference media days was marked by an effusive ebullience which left many wondering whether the school had hired a cheerleader instead of a football coach.
Kill’s hiring has been marked by a bluntness made even sharper since his cancer fight. He said parents and schools need to get back to corporal punishment, rather than befriending the young people they nurture. He said he can’t tolerate people who grouse about life, when he has faced the possibility of death. And he said Minnesota isn’t good enough right now.
“I’m not going to give you a big line of bull,” he said. “It’s not going to do you any good, because the truth is going to come out when you play.”
The truth is Kill’s 127-73 career record gives him a better winning percentage than all but three Big Ten head coaches — Penn State’s Joe Paterno, Wisconsin’s Bret Bielema and Nebraska’s Bo Pelini, none of whom coached some of the downtrodden programs he did.
But for years, he wondered whether his career path would allow him this opportunity. Throughout his cancer fight, he grew more concerned about it, not for himself, but for his loyal assistants who wanted to coach at the highest level.
“I think, sometimes, people evaluate you on whether you have a II next to your name, or a III, or a I,” he said. “Do I think that’s fair? No, I don’t. There are good coaches everywhere.”
E-mail David Mayo: dmayo@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo
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