Former SIU head football coach and current Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill surprisingly announced his immediate retirement from coaching Wednesday.
The 54-year-old Kill, who has beaten kidney cancer and suffers from epilepsy, cited medical reasons for the decision.
Kill coached at SIU from 2001 to 2007. Joel Sambursky was the quarterback for the Salukis from 2002 to 2005. He has stayed close to Kill over the years. Sambursky says Coach Kill never coached for money or ego, but for the love of the game and his players.
"For him to have the courage to step away at really the peak of his career at this moment, speaks to the type of man he is."
Sambursky says Kill also showed how selfless he is by making this heartbreaking decision.
"He's making the smart decision, the wise decision, but the gut-wrenching decision to focus now more on his health and his family. Again, this has to be the most challenging call he's ever had to make. I'm glad that he had the courage to make it."
Kill led SIU to the playoffs five times in his seven seasons in Carbondale and helped revive a Saluki football program that had not been to the playoffs since the team's national championship season of 1983.
Sambursky says Kill was much more than a football coach to him and the thousands of players he's coached over the past 32 years.
"We meant more to him than just what we could do for him on a football field. He cared about our lives. He invested in us as human beings, as people. Now that my playing days are long over, he still invests in me as a man, as a father, as a husband."
Sambursky says hopefully Coach Kill still has a lot of life to live. He says whatever his former coach decides to do; it will make the world a better place.
"The man works harder than anyone I've ever been around. The hours that he puts in, the things that he has to do that's not necessarily seen, so he needs some rest. But, I can't imagine the next phase of his life doesn't involve helping somehow, someway."
