Turner Gill

Turner Hillery Gill (born August 13, 1962) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the head football coach at Liberty University. Gill's previous coaching job was as the head coach at University of Kansas from 2010–2011, and at the University at Buffalo before that. He was one of 11 black head coaches in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision at the time of his hiring.

Playing career

College

Gill graduated from Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth, Texas where he was an all-state, all-county and all-district quarterback for Coach Merlin Priddy. During his senior season, Gill was courted heavily by Nebraska, as well as arch-rival Oklahoma, and Texas. Nebraska won the spirited battle for Gill, in part because they would allow Turner to play baseball as well as football, but also because head coach Tom Osborne had managed to quell any rumors about Nebraska supposedly being reluctant to play an African-American at quarterback.

Gill arrived on campus in 1980 and saw limited action in mop-up duty as a freshman, which at the time was still relatively unusual, as freshmen had only been recently allowed under NCAA rules to participate at the varsity level.