For me it's my brother Dan. We both graduated from Minnetonka a couple of years apart and I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I graduated. I came about 5 minutes from being inducted into the Navy, I passed my physical and everything but there was some paperwork mix up and I didn't end up being processed that day. I had already applied and been accepted at the U which was where my brother was going. I came home that night and my dad and brother convinced me to go the college route instead. I stuck it out for 5 years and earned my B. A. in '92. My brother completed Grad School at the U before going onto CU - Boulder for his PhD and then getting a Chemistry Professor offer at Southern Illinois a couple of years before Kill started there.
I hadn't really been to a Gopher football game for several years until a friend invited me to the Northern Illinois game at TCF in 2009 where Kills team beat us but after that game I was hooked on TCF and Gopher football once again and I have been to 2-3 games every year since then. This was a bittersweet time for me because my brother had just been diagnosed with brain cancer around that time and I posted on his Caringbridge site that we were so bad NIU beat us and SIU would probably have beat us too.
My brother passed away on the day Coach Kill was hired, I was actually listening to Coach Kill's press conference on KFAN at work when my sister in law and sister called from Carbondale to say he has just passed away. She called literally right after Maturi spoke of how Coach Kill beat cancer and had started a fund down at SIU to help fight it to demonstrate what a great man Coach Kill was. Needless to say I was broken to pieces when this happened. I view this as his last message to me was to root for Kill and those who were more fortunate than him who beat cancer, the timing and connections were all too eerily ironic seeing that my brother and I not only had a connection through the U but now also through Coach Kill and SIU.
I wrote a letter to Coach Kill following this offering to volunteer if he ever started a cancer fund up here and Coach Kill graciously actually called me back and spoke to me for a few minutes, he is one heck of a guy.
My sister-in-law and my niece will be coming up here for Thanksgiving from Carbondale where she has continued to live, my brother would have come if he was still with us and I'd have given my sons ticket to him for the Badger game and we'd have gone together, no doubt in my mind since the game is the day after my birthday and he'd have wanted to check out TCF and to see that game, especially now that we have beer, even though he had become a CU football fan and Saluki basketball fan in the meantime. But you never lose being a fan of your home state's team and the place where you earned your degree.
Bring some magic to the team and Coach Kill for us on Saturday Dan, your nephew and brother want to storm the field and touch the axe. I promise to hoist a cold "non swill" beer in your name after the victory.
Can't wait to travel in several years to see the Gophers play at Boulder, wouldn't miss it for the world god willing and I'll be thinking of him the whole time.
Football was one of the things we spoke about most often about when he'd call to catch up, we'd undoubtedly talk about how the Vikings and Gophers were doing. I really miss those phone calls.
Sorry for the long winded response.
