Chip Kelly offers moving tribute to the late UCLA defensive coordinator Bill McGovern

College football has lost some true legends in the coaching ranks in the last year, from Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach to UCLA defensive coordinator Bill McGovern.

McGovern died in May at the age of 60 following a long and quiet battle with cancer. UCLA coach Chip Kelly gave a thoroughly moving tribute to his former assistant coach at the Pac-12 Media Days on Friday, on the verge of tears as he discussed the last year.

“I gave that look because whenever I start talking about Billy I start crying again, but amazing man and amazing impact on so many other people,” Kelly said. ” What he did in his last year, how tough, how courageous and how humble he was. He didn’t want anybody to know he was sick.”

Bill McGovern’s battle with cancer was kept mostly quiet, with only a select few individuals knowing he was in a fight for his life.

That was by design.

“And the only reason was he said I don’t want my daughters to have to answer questions about me every day and I don’t want the players to have to answer questions about me every day,” Kelly explained. “So our administration, our medical staff and select coaches knew, and it was because that’s the way he wanted it. But that’s Billy.

“And when I had the conversation with him, he said, ‘You just have to understand this isn’t about me.’ And there was only two of us in the room, and I said, ‘It’s not about me.’ But that’s just the way Billy was, and his courage, his toughness and his humility in that last year was an amazing thing.”

Bill McGovern spent only one year on Kelly’s UCLA staff but had previously been with him at the Philadelphia Eagles from 2013-15. Some of McGovern’s other stops included Boston College, Pittsburgh, UMass and Holy Cross. He coached for various NFL teams as well, after getting into coaching back in 1985.

Needless to say, he impacted a lot of people over the years.

“I think the biggest thing is — and I said this at the funeral — is that man’s biggest fear isn’t death, man’s biggest fear is insignificance,” Kelly said. “And Billy wasn’t afraid because of how significant his life was and the impact that he had on so many people is that he was at peace with if this is what God has selected for me, I’m good.

“And he went out the way he wanted to go out, and it was special that I had the honor to be with him for the last 11 months of his life.”

Kelly had one other quite beautiful way to sum up Bill McGovern’s impact on the players he coached and the coaches he worked with.

“I said it at the funeral: If you want to touch the past you touch a rock, and if you want to touch the present you touch a flower, but if you want to touch a future you touch a life,” Kelly said. “And that’s what Billy did. And everybody he came in contact with him, he had the same effect on all of them.

“Good people leave a mark on everybody’s heart, and that’s what Billy did. He left a mark. He was gone too soon after 60 years, but what he did and the effect that he had on human beings is, if you can have half of that in your lifetime then you’ve lived a pretty special life.”