Written by Matt Zemek at Bloguin
The Minnesota Golden Gophers have endured a difficult 2015 season, and that journey became a lot more painful on Wednesday morning.
Head coach Jerry Kill had to retire from coaching due to the health problems he has faced for years. Kill becomes the third coach to retire from coaching during this season, joining Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) and George O’Leary (UCF).
Kill leaves behind a rich legacy, having built Northern Illinois to the point that the Huskies could make the Orange Bowl under successor Dave Doeren in the 2012 season. He then improved Minnesota to a considerable degree, leading the program to the Citrus Bowl last season, its most prestigious postseason destination since the 1962 Rose Bowl against UCLA.
Let’s say a little more about that 1962 Rose Bowl game: It marked the end of the Golden Gophers’ third great era in their history, under head coach Murray Warmath. The first was created by Henry Williams in pre-World War I times. (Williams Arena, the school’s basketball gymnasium? Yeah — that’s Henry Williams.) The second — and greatest — era came under Bernie Bierman in the 1930s, when the program won multiple national championships. (For perspective, this was when the Associated Press Poll began to be used on an annual basis in college football — 1936, to be specific.)
Jerry Kill never reached those heights, but he established himself as one of the better coaches in Minnesota football history. His departure from the scene creates two fundamental stories: a story of pain, and a story in which the program must find a way forward.
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