Former Minnesota coach Jerry Kill takes job at Kansas State
After being unable to agree with Minnesota on a post-coaching role, former Gophers coach Jerry Kill has gotten a job with Kansas State.
KSU announced Tuesday that Kill would be the school's Associate Athletics Director for Administration. The KSU release said Kill will "serve as chief administrator for the K-State football program."
The former Minnesota coach is a Kansas native.
“Rebecca and I couldn’t be happier to return home to the state of Kansas and join the K-State Athletics family and Manhattan community,” Kill said in a statement. “I want to make it known that my coaching days are over, and I am excited to start this next phase as an administrator for one of the finest athletics departments in the country. Mentoring has always been very important to me, and I am thrilled to work in support of Hall of Fame Coach Bill Snyder and the football program and learn more about the administrative side of college athletics under John and the rest of the first-class staff at K-State.”
Kill retired from coaching during the 2015 season because of health reasons and said his epileptic seizures had returned, making fulfilling his coaching duties difficult. He said at his retirement press conference in October that the decision to quit coaching was the toughest thing he's ever done. He was succeeded as Minnesota's coach by defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys.
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Claeys was given the permanent job in November.
"I know somebody will ask ‘Coach, what are you going to do?’" Kill said when announcing his retirement. "I don’t know. I haven’t done anything else. That’s the scary part."
The "I don't know" turned into a possible job at Minnesota but it ultimately didn't pan out. Kill said he wanted to be involved in athletics at the school while the president wanted him to potentially speak, teach a class and help raise money for the school.
Before coaching at Minnesota, Kill was the coach at Northern Illinois. He also served as a head coach for Division II Emporia State and an assistant coach at DII Pittsburg State during his career. Both of those schools are located in Kansas.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
