Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Minnesota Coach Jerry Kill and his assistants have developed a routine to deal with his health scares.
MINNEAPOLIS — Immediately after Jerry Kill has a seizure on the sideline, one longtime assistant takes over the headset and communicates with officials. The defensive coordinator handles the postgame news conference and splits the remaining news media obligations with the offensive coordinator. Should Kill miss practice, they revert to their schedule from a week earlier, with adjustments based on their next opponent.
Always, Kill returns soon after to his office at the University of Minnesota. The assistants come to work and see him at his desk and nod and head to their own offices, not a word exchanged.
Kill, 52, is a reconstruction specialist, an expert in taking over feeble programs and turning them into something better. He is probably also the only college football coach in the country who has a seizure protocol.
There is no three-ring binder or written list of step-by-step instructions, only the calm and routine borne from years spent side by side with his trusted assistants, as they climbed from the lower levels of college football to the Big Ten.
Three times in the last three seasons, Kill could not finish games because of epileptic seizures. Each time, thousands witnessed him splayed on the ground, as spasms shot through his limbs and his body shook uncontrollably and some of his players cried.
Those scenes garnered national attention, some criticism and thousands upon thousands of letters of support. They also embarrassed Kill, a little bit anyway, but mainly because they were distractions from what he considers important: resurrecting a program with 7 national championships and 18 Big Ten titles, the last secured in 1967.
Kill sat inside his office last week at Minnesota, more than two years into his latest college football reclamation project. Game film was paused on the projection screen, and that was what mattered, not the epilepsy, not the kidney cancer that he beat, not all the questions about the seizures on the sideline, the latest of which occurred 13 days before.
"If I have a seizure, I crawl, and I find a way to get back up," Kill said. "But I never ask. I couldn't tell you what one looks like. I'm bullheaded. I keep going."
Kill turned back to the game film. His next opponent, Iowa, awaited.
Business as Usual
The first seizure on the sideline saved Kill's life. It was 2005, and he worked at Southern Illinois, and those in attendance remember the deficit, the rage, the seizure, the silence and the ambulance.
Afterward, the doctors who examined Kill found kidney cancer, Stage 4. A doctor asked Kill to come into the office. But he had recruits to see, so he declined. He learned about the cancer over the phone and went back to work.
That was the first time anyone suggested Kill might have epilepsy, a neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures. His first seizure occurred five years earlier, in his bedroom. The aftermath felt like a car crash, with Kill groggy, his muscles sore. He told ESPN over the summer that he had endured perhaps 20 seizures in the last two years; he was not exactly sure.
Kill accepted the Minnesota job before the 2011 season. He brought up epilepsy at the beginning of the interview process and offered to clear up any concerns. At a team meeting, he laid out his health history, including the possibility of in-game convulsions, which he dismissed as remote. Yet he had a seizure in the home opener. He had another in the 2012 regular-season finale. And another early this season.
Each time, Kill's assistants and the team doctors surrounded him as the seizure unfolded. They made sure there was room around him and no sharp objects nearby. Sometimes, Kill went to the hospital afterward to have blood drawn, and after that he rested until he returned to work. Since there is no way to know for certain when the seizures might occur, there are no extra precautions taken.
During the first one at Minnesota, Mike Rallis, a linebacker on the 2011 team, said the stadium went silent. "It was eerie," Rallis said, although Kill's assistants reassured the players afterward, and Kill returned the next week and told the Gophers he felt fine. He even turned that seizure into a coaching lesson. Ignore all distractions, he told them, and push forward.
That showed what epilepsy symbolized to Kill: a distraction.
"I'm not going to lie and say that when Coach has a seizure, I go, 'Ho-hum,' " said Matt Limegrover, a longtime assistant. "You're always concerned. It's always hard to watch. But we've come to expect him back in his chair the next morning."
In recent years, Kill has taken steps to manage his epilepsy, guided by his wife of 30 years, Rebecca, who declined to comment, and Dr. Ilo Leppik, a university professor who began to work with Kill last off-season. Kill, who has two daughters, changed his diet, slept more, tried to work less, experimented with different medications and continued to take long walks. He told friends over the summer that he had never felt better.
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