In the midst of recent NFL turmoil, a national football poll with important Minnesota implications received too little attention. ESPN.com asked FBS college football head coaches which other college coach they would most want their son to play for. The University of Minnesota's Jerry Kill tied for 3rd among all 128 Football Bowl Subdivision coaches.

He tied for first in voting by coaches from conferences at the level in which he coached before arriving at Minnesota, and those are the coaches who know him best. He led all Big Ten head football coaches overall. What a credit to Coach Kill and the U!

There can be no higher compliment from coaching peers than their personally saying, "I most trust you, among all other college football coaches, to bring out the best in my son, win the right way, and as his surrogate parent, help teach him ethics and life lessons." That is the statement I believe voting coaches made.

No matter what this season's eventual record, Gopher football is on the right trajectory. We are fortunate to have Coach Kill and all he represents.

BOB STEIN, Minnetonka
CLIMATE MARCH

Organizers counted a much larger number

I'm appalled at your downplaying the significance of the New York People's Climate March on Sept. 21 ("Tens of thousands say: Wake up to warming," Sept. 22). It was not "tens of thousands" of people, as you reported. It was hundreds of thousands! From the New York Times: "Organizers, using data provided by 35 crowd spotters and analyzed by a mathematician from Carnegie Mellon University, estimated that 311,000 people marched the route." The New Yorker added: "It was probably closer to 400,000, judging from the constant churn of people arriving and leaving.

I applaud your front-page placement of the climate change issue. I am confused by your underestimate of the number of people at the march. Please count all who were involved for the significance they represent!

MINDY AHLER, Edina

The writer is co-director of Cool Planet.

COLLEGE COSTS

When debt burdens rose, home sales fell

Short and sweet, to the legislators and their governor whose infinite wisdom guided them as they gutted public funding for education a decade ago comes yet more proof of their shortsighted, self-serving galactic ignorance, case in point the $83 billion curb in home sales due to college debt (Sept. 23).

The best societies are built from the ground up by investing in education, and making education affordable. What does that mean? It means a kid can count on going to college and paying for it by working as they go, just like my generation was empowered to do. Not more than 20 years ago, students could work a service job and still pay their way through an undergraduate degree, thanks to publicly subsidized funding of colleges and universities.

Gov. Mark Dayton and legislators need to undo the grotesquely failed experiment of burdening graduates with life-destroying student loans and restore funding to bring down the cost of college so that it's truly affordable.

MARK GALLAGHER, Antioch, Calif.
OPIATE ANTIDOTE

All first responders should have Narcan

I read with interest that the Coon Rapids Fire Department has been given permission to carry the antidote Narcan to prevent opiate overdoses ("Coon Rapids firefighters now carry heroin antidote," Sept. 17). Our family discovered firsthand the dangers of these opiates when on June 10, 2007, our 10-year-old daughter died from a Codeine overdose following her first night home from the hospital after successful orthopedic surgery.

Narcan wasn't available at the time, and had it been Maria might have survived. Since our tragedy, I've learned that children younger than 12 should never be prescribed opiates because of the dangers of respiratory depression. Opiates are often prescribed by hospitals because they are cheap to produce and highly profitable.

I urge all parents to ask their doctors for safer alternatives to these dangerous drugs. Everyone has the right to know what the safer pain control medications are for their loved ones. It is too late for our family, but I hope my story will save many lives, and I hope Narcan can be placed in every fire station in the state.

TODD GABRIELSON, Minneapolis
STUDENT CHEATING

Plagiarism reflects an anything goes attitude

My experience as a professor of academic writing leaves me appalled at the revelations in Stephen Wilbers' Sept. 22 column "'Plagiarism free' papers? Don't buy it." If what he reports is real, then I fear for our nation's academic standards.

For example, I would not want to be in the office of a doctor who bought one or more of these papers in order to complete his degrees. It spotlights a creeping attitude, more and more obvious in our country, of "anything to get by; get by at all costs." Essays and assigned papers are supposed to be the work of the student. Good or bad, that is the point. Paying someone else to do his or her headwork not only undermines the whole scholastic system, but robs the student of opportunities to learn and grow.

I do not know how this insidious trend can be controlled, and suspect it will only get worse. There is not enough time to speak to all of the ramifications of this. However, I am of the opinion that there are truly serious students who will not fall into such a trap, no matter what the time squeeze.

RAY ALLARD, Duluth, Minn.
ISIL RECRUITING

U.S. military is guilty of using similar tactics

It's terribly tragic that young people in Minnesota are being recruited to go overseas and join the ISIL ("Finding recruits by selling death," Sept. 21). How dare they use slick videos and advertising to lure the disaffected and vulnerable to their deaths? How could anyone with a conscience be so cruel and calculating?

Wait, who are we talking about? Doesn't the U.S. military and every military in the world engage in exactly the same type of techniques? The biggest clubs in the world have been formed to lure the young and vulnerable to their deaths. We name ourselves differently, but our actions are one and the same. There is no love in us, only retaliation and revenge. Young people, just say no.

RENEE ZITZLOFF, Minnetonka