InFluential_Magazine_March_April_2017
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influential-magazine.com<br />
2016, he was presented with the<br />
Hero of Epilepsy Award from the<br />
Epilepsy Foundation. Kill frequently<br />
speaks at conferences, founded<br />
the Chasing Dreams Epilepsy Fund,<br />
and, most recently, has teamed up<br />
with UCB and EpilepsyAdvocate<br />
on the social media campaign<br />
#TackleEpilepsy to help raise<br />
awareness of epilepsy during the<br />
football post season. Approximately<br />
one in 26 people will be diagnosed<br />
with epilepsy in their lifetime.<br />
Early Memories<br />
Long before Kill’s journey led him<br />
to become an inspirational epilepsy<br />
ambassador and advocate, it began<br />
with a seizure. “I was alone in my<br />
bedroom when it occurred,” Kill<br />
remembers. “At that time I didn’t know<br />
I’d experienced a seizure, because I<br />
wasn’t sure what a seizure was.”<br />
The Demands of Big Ten Football<br />
Kill was named head coach of the<br />
University of Minnesota’s football<br />
team in 2011, and though he was<br />
continuing to experience seizures,<br />
he refused to let them prevent him<br />
from coaching at the game’s highest<br />
level. However, the grind of being<br />
a Big Ten coach started to affect<br />
his health. “Being a college football<br />
coach is an extremely stressful job,”<br />
Kill says. “We work 16 hours a day,<br />
seven days a week during the season.<br />
In the off-season, we’re constantly<br />
on the road recruiting. I was often<br />
sleeping only two or three hours a<br />
night and I wasn’t eating properly.”<br />
The grind finally took its toll, and<br />
in 2013, Kill was forced to miss a<br />
game for the first time in his career.<br />
Leading up to the team’s road<br />
game at Michigan, Kill estimates he<br />
suffered more than a dozen seizures<br />
over a two- or three-day period.<br />
While his absence was taken<br />
hard by many, Kill chose to focus<br />
on the positive. He embraced the<br />
outpouring of support he and his<br />
family received from his players,<br />
fans and the state of Minnesota as a<br />
whole. And with his wife by his side,<br />
he began working with a specialist<br />
to get his epilepsy under control.<br />
Going Forward to #TackleEpilepsy<br />
Today, Kill is able to continue to<br />
coach the game he loves and focus<br />
on staying healthy, managing his<br />
epilepsy, and raising awareness.<br />
That’s why he’s partnering with UCB<br />
and EpilepsyAdvocate to support<br />
the #TackleEpilepsy campaign to<br />
raise epilepsy awareness. The #TackleEpilepsy<br />
campaign invites people<br />
to take a picture of their best “game<br />
face,” upload the photo to their Facebook<br />
pages using the hashtag #TackleEpilepsy,<br />
and tag friends to spread<br />
awareness. UCB will donate $26,000<br />
to the Epilepsy Foundation in honor<br />
of #TackleEpilepsy participation.<br />
This represents the one in 26 people<br />
who will be diagnosed with epilepsy<br />
in their lifetime.<br />
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder<br />
sometimes called a seizure disorder<br />
because seizures are the primary<br />
symptom. Epilepsy is one of the<br />
most common neurological<br />
diseases worldwide; more than 65<br />
million people worldwide live with<br />
the disease, including an estimated<br />
3 million in the U.S.<br />
Learn more about #TackleEpilepsy<br />
and check out some of the best<br />
game faces on the EpilepsyAdvocate<br />
Facebook page. You can<br />
follow Coach Kill on Twitter at<br />
@JerryKillCoach. (BPT) l<br />
MARCH / APRIL <strong>2017</strong><br />
FLUENTIAL<br />
69
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