Using College Sport to Build Leadership

Spend a little time with second-year Northern Illinois Head Football Coach Jerry Kill and you'll undoubtedly hear him describe himself as a "hard hat, lunch pail" guy. It's a tribute to his blue-collar roots - Kill was the first member of his family to graduate from college - and to the work ethic instilled in him by his parents, Jim and Sonja, as a youngster in Cheney, Kansas. That blue-collar work ethic is also one of the qualities that made Kill, who spent seven years building the Southern Illinois program into a Football Championship Subdivision powerhouse, a perfect fit to succeed Joe Novak as the head coach at Northern Illinois back in December 2007. In his first season at NIU, Kill instilled that hard-working mentality in the Huskies and brought a winning attitude that ultimately resulted in a trip to the 2008 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., and made Kill the winningest first-year head coach at Northern Illinois since Bill Mallory in 1980.


"On the field, I want our kids to play smart," he said. "I want them to be mentally and physically tough so they can win in the fourth quarter. I believe in hard work and the harder you work, the better your chances of success. I will push them to the limit. I won't win a popularity contest at times, but we're not in it for a popularity contest. My job is to get the best out of them. "Ultimately, the game comes down to the players. If you don't have great players, you aren't going to win many games." 

Kill's high expectations for his student-athletes extend from the football field to the classroom, the community and beyond. "I expect our student-athletes to represent our school and our community on and off the field," Kill said. "One of the most important things to me is how they do in life after they leave the program. I firmly believe that what we do here and how we drive kids over the four or five years will help them down the road." One of the ways Kill and his staff "drive kids" is the Warrior Elite program. Every year, the roster is split into groups who then compete and earn points for everything from academic success to participation in community service activities to on-the-field effort and weight room benchmarks. The program is one more way that Kill and his staff teach teamwork and build leadership. They believe that football is the perfect vehicle to impart skills that have life-long benefits. "Football is such a challenge because you have to get everybody on the same page in a huge organization," Kill said. "Then to get everybody to execute on a given play is difficult. Most college athletes are playing for four or five years and they are very competitive, and you had better be (competitive) when you go out into the real world or you can get swallowed. Competing in athletics gives you an edge."

Using College Sport to Build Leadership