Column: Aaron Worm, Behind the Mic

I don’t know the last time that my favorite professional, college and high school football teams started the year with new head coaches.

That will be the case this year with Leslie Frazier with the Vikings, Jerry Kill with the Gophers and Max Jeffrey with the Tigers. Each of these guys has paid their dues and deserves a shot at the head spot.

Frazier has been an assistant coach in the NFL since 1997 after being the head coach at Trinity College in Illinois for nine seasons. His claim to fame in the NFL was being a member of the 1985 Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears and also was in the “Super Bowl Shuffle” video. I don’t remember his role in the video; I think Jim McMahon and The Fridge stole most of the spotlight.

After former defensive coordinators Brian Billick and Tony Dungy left to be head coaches somewhere else and won Super Bowl titles, (Billick in 2000 with Baltimore and Dungy in 2006 with Indianapolis), the Vikings had to give Fraizer a shot at the head job. There is pressure on Frazier to have an above .500 season after a disappointing six-win season last year.

The only reason I had ever heard of Jerry Kill is I was at the game last season where his Northern Illinois squad took care of our Gophers and started the downward spiral that eventually led to the firing of Tim Brewster.

Even though he is not a big name, Kill’s resume is pretty impressive. From 1994 through 2010, he has a head coaching record of 127-73 while at Saginaw Valley State, Emporia State, Southern Illinois and Northern Illinois. His job this year is not to lead this team to a conference title or a big bowl game, but to establish this program once again as a Division I football team in a big-time conference. What I mean by that is beat teams you are supposed to (that loss to South Dakota last year still stings for many Gopher fans).

And when it comes to Max Jeffrey, I could not be happier for him. After spending 14 years as an assistant coach, I would say he paid his dues and then some. Not only has he worked with pretty much every level of the program, he is a Tiger through and through being a 1990 graduate of Albert Lea High School. I joked with him after getting the job that there was pressure on him to beat Austin since the Tigers have beaten the Packers in their last five matchups.

Jeffrey will bring in some new things when it comes to X’s and O’s, but he definitely will be a familiar face with the players.

As much as I am looking forward to the debuts of Frazier and Kill, I am of course the most excited for Sept. 1 when Jeffrey makes his debut as head coach of Albert Lea at Waseca. Whatever happens on opening night or throughout the season we know like teams in the past, Jeffrey’s team will play hard for 48 minutes. Pull out the cherry and blue, Tigers football will be here soon.

KATE Sports Director Aaron Worm’s column usually appears each Monday in the Tribune. He can he heard from 6 to 11 a.m. weekdays on The Breeze.