Much has been made of the long relationship between Gophers head coach Jerry Kill and most of his coaching staff. The gentlemen cited most often are defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys, who has been with Kill since 1995 at Saginaw Valley State in Michigan, and offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover, who has been with him since 1999 at Emporia State in Kansas.
There is one key person senior to Claeys on Kill's staff: Eric Klein, the strength and conditioning coach, who has been with Kill since Jerry's first season as a head coach at Saginaw Valley State in 1994.
I've written a column for Saturday's print edition that will include the suggestion that the Gophers' most-impressive upgrade in the last two years – from the end of the 2012 season to this November – has been in physical presence … toughness, strength, whatever you want to call it.
Actually, I mentioned this to Kill in a radio interview last Monday, and he sent the accolades to Klein for that.
Klein is from Apple Valley. He played football at Carleton and had just graduated from that Northfield home for brainiacs when Kill got him hired at Saginaw Valley. That was quite a leap of faith for Kill, and it has paid off for the coach there, and in stops at Emporia State, Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois and now Minnesota.
Kill was asked for some additional comments on Klein on Wednesday. As it turns out, Eric was hired on the recommendation of Gerald Young, now Carleton's athletic director. Kill and Young had been teammates and roommates at Southwestern, a Methodist college in the small burg of Winfield, Kansas.
Here's Kill on the importance of Eric Klein to his football programs:
"He's just kind'a ahead of the game a little. Clear back to Southern Illinois [2001], he'd want to go a different way … training an athlete a little bit different. I was old school, like everybody else, but Eric jumped out ahead of it. I trusted him and have never looked back.
