15 Years After Personal Tragedy, PJ Fleck Opens Old Wounds to Spotlight His Groundbreaking Minnesota Charity

Coaching a college football program entails more than just being good at the Xs and Os. It’s a much, much more holistic, all-encompassing capacity than what the uninitiated may think. It’s a role fueled by people skills and an ability to forge and then cultivate relationships just as much, if not more, than your acumen of the game. Recruiting from high school, and now the transfer portal, is the poster child of this dynamic. But there’s a lot more to it. It’s a sport geared towards communities, sans much of the flash and pageantry of the professional leagues. One coach who understands this and even epitomizes it is PJ Fleck.

Back when PJ Fleck became the youngest coach in the entire FBS a little over a decade ago with Western Michigan, he already projected as someone that’s going to have a pronounced impact on college football. As it transpires, he has installed a culture intrinsically tied to serving the community at his current stop Minnesota. The Golden Gophers are often an afterthought in the grand scheme of the Big 10. Ancillary to their blueblood contemporaries. But Coach Fleck hasn’t just put in motion a shift in that narrative, he’s making his program the epitome of football helping uplift the community. PJ Fleck is renowned for the charitable work he does, particularly with children’s hospitals. A practice that stems from very tragic and adverse circumstances in his past. And also a practice he preaches to the choir. 

In an emotionally-charged, passionate conversation with the iconic Jim Tressel, Coach Fleck fought back said adversity to express his motives for being closely associated with the Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minnesota. Which he has even got his players to visit. PJ Fleck and his wife, Heather, lost their son Colton shortly after his birth. The amount of despair that would cause is unfathomable, and it’s almost futile to express with words. But Coach Fleck has funnelled that despair into something good. Speaking over the “It’s All About the Team” podcast, PJ Fleck laid bare his beliefs and feelings. “When I was in the children’s hospital in Philadelphia, with the Colton situation, you don’t know what you’re going to feel. Because you’re walking in with something that you know you won’t walk out with. It’s the most surreal feeling in the world,” he said.

PJ Fleck’s recruiting rule?
“Show me who you are — at camp.”
His mindset was shaped by a tough high school camp, and now he wants to see how players respond to pressure before giving any offers.#PJFleck #RowTheBoat #CollegeFootball #Recruiting #EarnIt #TeamCulture pic.twitter.com/RYIimkRpBh

— It’s All About the Team with Jim Tressel (@JTresselTeam) May 21, 2025

The Fleck family knew Colton was at risk towards the end of the pregnancy, since he was detected to be suffering from a heart condition. “It was just a matter of how long he’d be with us,” PJ Fleck had said in the past. This contextualizes just how profound this “surreal feeling” was. Coach Fleck proceeded to say, “When I came out, I was fearful of how I’d feel coming out of that hospital. I was the most inspired, motivated, driven, confident, father [and] coach…because of the people that work inside the hospital. It wasn’t the hospital, it wasn’t the research. The research couldn’t bring my son back. But it was the people who made me want to do something. The nurses, the doctors. The way they made me feel.” The gravitas of this perspective is, frankly, beyond what most humans are even capable of.

Although it’s been 15 years since PJ Fleck lost Colton, the feelings are still very fresh. Perhaps because he uses them to drive forward. Both personally and professionally. Coach Fleck spoke to Jim Tressel about how he translates the values he learned during that ordeal to his coaching. As well as how it nudged him towards making sure other parents do not have to contend with what he did.

PJ Fleck on how his children’s charity operates; life lessons translating to football

PJ Fleck reminisced over Minnesota’s recently concluded spring practice and how seeing the interpersonal relationships and dynamics within his roster led him to an epiphany. “It brought me back to that. That it wasn’t just about the alumni in a football program. It’s just as deep and as spiritual as walking into a hospital knowing you’re not going to bring that child home. And walking out feeling that you were a part of something bigger than yourself. They gave you the inspiration. The people [at the hospital], because of how they handled the situation, made you do something that’s life-changing for other people. I mean, that is the power of human beings,” remarked Coach Fleck. You can imagine his words don’t fall on deaf ears in the dressing room. The power manages to transcend the podcast mic he said them on.

Coach Fleck then took this opportunity to cast light on his “Row the Boat” charity and what it does for the aforementioned Masonic Children’s Hospital. Not to earn plaudits for himself, but to explain what it does to be optimally effective. “What our charity does…it’s not about the research. That’s really important, [but] there’s so many organizations that do that. It’s imperative that we have that. But our foundation goes right into the families,” he said.

“So they don’t have to be separate, so they don’t have to worry about their mortgage. So they don’t have to worry about gas going to and from the hospital, so they don’t have to worry about all these other things while their sons or daughters are in a hospital for 18 total months in a room,” resounded PJ Fleck. This is a good football coach who’s got momentum behind his program. But it’s an even better person. Hopefully, Coach Fleck’s words can spark some sort of reciprocation from any listeners touched by his story. Coerce people into contributing to the cause. As someone who channelled the emotions of losing his newborn into this magnitude of positivity, it’s difficult to root against Coach Fleck. No matter your persuasions or rooting interests as a college football fan.

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