Reaction to Kill's rant
Here were some of my thoughts yesterday that I sent to some buddies via email:
There are always 2 roads one can take, and in this case, unfortunately, Jerry took the low road. Are we naïve enough to think that coaches like Sabin, Meyer, Alvarez, Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and others, do/did NOT have egos? Jim Wacker was one of the nicest and most humble men I’ve ever met, yet he was marched out of town because he couldn’t win. Also, what other coach have we ever hired who didn’t come in and start fresh with an entirely new staff of coaches. Answer: none! At the time Fleck was hired, we had up to 10 football players suspended from the team for sexual misconduct and Coach Claeys had on tap the lowest rated recruiting class in the BIG10. Fleck was hired specifically to bring in CHANGE! I remember him saying something like, “you want change, well this is what change looks like”.
I also have vivid memories of the sidelines during the 4th quarter of the Wisconsin game. There is flat-out no way that these kids don’t enjoy playing for Fleck. Personally, I have always had a lot of respect for Coach Kill, but I think all of this would have been better had it been left un-said. I don’t think that anything Fleck has ever done was to suggest that Coach Kill and his staff did NOT do an excellent job. I think Jerry took it personally that Fleck (and Coyle) inferred that so much “change” was needed and that must have been because the previous staff did not do a good enough job. If Kill had NOT retired and his health had improved, there is no way that Coyle fires him. I think it had more to do with what happened with Claeys during and after the suspensions, and the fact that Tracy wasn’t exactly a promotion machine when it came to selling the fan base or future recruits.
Could the transition been handled better, of course. Is that Fleck’s fault, of course NOT. All in all, Coach Kill’s comments never should have been aired on a national radio show. One of my fellow Gopher fans mentioned that history will sort this out. I think that process has already begun, with blow-out wins over Purdue, Wisconsin, and Georgia Tech and ending the season by winning 3 of the final 4. I saw a team having fun, enjoying playing for the current coach, and finally coming together with a little bit of a peek into the future. Sure, I get a little tired of some of Flecks sound bites (youngest team in America, ok I get that, you don’t have to keep telling me), but when you win these games and bring the axe back by drubbing the Badgers in their own house, that says more to me that all the Fleck - isms, or the rantings of a Coach that is still bitter about the way his staff was treated at Minnesota.
We were just listening to CCO and whomever the radio host is right now just spent about 10 minutes ripping Kill, but in a very respectful way. He made the comment that Kill had said that Fleck was a different person than he was in 2008. The CCO guy said, “well who isn’t?” I would hope that MOST people are, I know I am. He said that Yes, Claeys won 10 games, but the program was an utter mess and recruiting was way down. Change was definitely needed. This doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate what Kill did for the program, he left it in better shape than when he came in. However, Claeys was NOT a head coach, at least at THIS level and he embarrassed the whole State on a national stage when he, in effect, supported the player’s boycott.
He said that a lot of fans don’t like Fleck’s running up and down the sidelines and slogans and such, mostly older fans. But guess what, college age kids LOVE it, they love wearing different uniforms, they love the enthusiasm. Those are the ones that really count when it comes to accepting Fleck. He said that if you have a problem with Fleck because of his unbridled enthusiasm, then maybe some self-reflection might be recommended.
Every point he made was right on and this appears to be a rallying point for many fans, in terms of backing Fleck. I don’t think Jerry knew what he was getting into by opening up this can of worms.
