On College Football: Jerry Kill Makes a Difficult, but Prudent, Call

Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times

Minnesota said Coach Jerry Kill stepped away "to focus on his treatment and better manage his epilepsy."

Those who knew Jerry Kill best, who watched him go through seizures in packed stadiums and return to work as if nothing happened, dreaded the situation that unfolded Thursday. They dreaded the day that Kill, an epileptic who inspired thousands of fellow epileptics, would step away from coaching.

That was what Kill, the coach at Minnesota, did Thursday as the university issued a carefully worded news release that said he would "take time to focus on his treatment and better manage his epilepsy." No timetable was given. The break could last a week, or a month, or the rest of the season.

Any break, though, was significant, because ever since Kill's first seizure, in 2000, he had insisted that his condition would not affect his ability to coach and that if it did, he would step away. He said as much two weeks ago, when he discussed his then-undefeated football program with The New York Times.

Kill wanted to show off his latest college football reclamation project. He allowed his longtime assistant coaches to detail the protocol they had developed for those occasions when he had seizures on the sidelines. He talked about toughness and about football and about progress.

He did not want to talk about epilepsy.

Kill felt he had sufficiently addressed that topic in recent years, and in an interview he noted the changes to his treatment plan in the off-season, the new specialist he was seeing, the long walks he took, the way he changed his diet. He labeled his seizures "distractions," and it was clear he meant the minor kind.

But what happened late last week was not minor. Kill did not feel well as Minnesota prepared to leave for Michigan, and he stayed behind, and he hoped, right up until he had another seizure, that he would be able to fly to Ann Arbor on Saturday morning and lead his team to a statement win.

Only he did have another seizure. He stayed home. This was the first time he had not attended a game at all because of a seizure. And it was his fifth seizure on a game day and his second one this season.

Kill and the Minnesota football program did the right thing in light of all that Thursday. They did the right thing for the team, but more important — way, way more important — they did the right thing for Kill. When he can coach, he should. Until then, his health is more important. More coaches should consider that.

Epileptics often figure out the right balance of medication and lifestyle. A majority of them do. They become rock stars like Neil Young or actors like Danny Glover. They become business executives and accountants and, yes, football coaches, and together, they help strike at stigmas that have existed around epilepsy for far too long. This isn't about whether epileptics can lead so-called normal lives.

But stress can cause seizures. So can fatigue. And some epileptics have seasonal patterns. No one but Kill and his doctors could even guess at whether coaching is bad for his health, or whether the stress or the weather or fatigue contributed to his seizures. But the events of last week — and the events of this season — have been a distraction. There's no getting around that.

"He's such a proud guy," Matt Limegrover, one longtime assistant, said last month. "I know he doesn't feel good about the fact that he'll have a seizure, and it will be right in front of everybody. He came to grips with it, but it frustrates him. Not being in control of it really bothers him."

Kill should take as much time as he needs. No staff in the country is better prepared to handle the absence, however brief or extended, of a head coach. That's not a knock on Kill. That's a nod to how long the key members of his staff have been together. Tracy Claeys, the defensive coordinator and acting head coach, has been with Kill for 19 years. He said he did not have a résumé, having never applied for another job.

The situation is both unprecedented and familiar. Unprecedented in that an epileptic coach decided to step away in the middle of the season. Familiar in that Minnesota and Kill's staff have been through this before.

The day they dreaded arrived Thursday, and the football team continued forward. That is no doubt how Kill wanted to proceed.

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