Canada holds memories for Gill
UB coach started pro career in CFL
TORONTO — Perhaps it’s a quirk of fate that Turner Gill’s football career ended in the same place as one of the most significant games in the University at Buffalo’s football history: Canadian soil.
“Since my last game was in Canada, I hope this isn’t the last football game that I coach,” said Gill, laughing.
After leading Nebraska to the cusp of the national championship, Gill started his professional football career in the Canadian Football League in 1984 before a series of concussions prematurely ended his career. Twenty-five years later, Gill brings UB (8-5) to the International Bowl to face Connecticut (7-5) on Saturday at the Rogers Centre (Noon, ESPN2, Radio 1230 AM).
“It wasn’t very good from the standpoint I had a lot of concussions,” said Gill on Wednesday. “That’s kind of the memory I have of it all. . . . That’s what ended my career.”
It started with so much promise. Gill wanted to play in the NFL but scouts informed him he was too short, was hard to evaluate at quarterback because he didn’t play in a pro-style offense and wasn’t featured prominently enough in an offense that included Heisman Trophy winner Mike Rozier. But three years as the quarterback at Nebraska demonstrated Gill was adept at running the option.
The Houston Gamblers of the USFL wanted to sign him but Gill balked because they had already thrown money at another big-name quarterback: Jim Kelly of Miami (Fla). A shortstop, Gill was drafted three times by professional baseball teams — in the second round by the Chicago White Sox after his senior year in high school, by the New York Yankees in the 17th round after his junior year at Nebraska and by the New York Mets after his senior year.
But Gill’s first love was football and he wanted to play quarterback, so he signed a four-year deal with the Montreal Concordes for $2 million.
“My dream was to come up here in the CFL to prove to people I could play in the NFL as a quarterback,” Gill said. “I kind of had someone in my mind to be like and that was Warren Moon. The year I came here was the year he left for Houston.”
Gill believed he was on a Moonlike path to the NFL. Inconsistency marred his rookie season, but he still managed to put together good statistics, completing 199 of 375 passes for 2,673 yards and 16 touchdowns. In his second season, he completed over 60 percent of his passes for 2,255 yards and seven touchdowns and was ranked among the top seven passers in the league.
“I thought things were going to get better and better, no doubt,” he said. “I was hoping to play in the CFL for three, four or five years to prove I had the capability to play in a pro style offense. I had the intelligence and I had the ability to throw the ball to play in that style of offense if I had the opportunity.”
But Gill suffered two concussions as a rookie and three in a row during his second season, the final one coming against Edmonton in Montreal’s final regular-season game.
“The last one was almost deadly,” Gill said. “The only thing I remember is dropping back for a pass and getting ready to throw to a receiver, that’s all I can remember from that period on. The next thing I remember was laying in the hospital bed and my wife calling my name. I don’t remember anything in between.”
After a series of evaluations with doctors in Montreal and Nebraska, Gill was advised to retire from football. Another hit to the head, doctors told him, and he could end up a paraplegic. Or worse.
“They were not going to release me to play, they were not going to sign off and say, ‘You’re physically ready to play,’ ” Gill said. “Once they said that, I didn’t battle it or fight it. I wanted to make sure as I got older and when I had children I wanted to be able to function and go out and throw the ball with my kids. It wasn’t worth the risk for me.”
But Gill, who had been playing football since he was 8 years old, was devastated.
“I went back home and said, ‘Now what do you do?’ ” he said. “You don’t expect it to end like that. You might see it coming. You’re not playing well or whatever. But all of the sudden it’s like boom and you say, ‘What are you going to do?’ ”
So Gill turned his attention back to baseball. After doctors cleared him to play, he signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians’ Class A affiliate in Waterloo, Iowa.
“I loved sports and I loved being competitive and I was pretty good at baseball so I wanted to give baseball a try,” he said. Always an excellent fielder, he learned hitting was another story. Gill never batted above .200 and after 2z years of struggling in the minors, he started his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at North Texas. Now he’s come full circle.
“My first professional opportunity was in Canada, my first head coaching job was in Buffalo, and my first bowl game is here in Toronto,” Gill said. “There’s some things you can put together, there’s no doubt about it.”
