The latest chapter of Kelly’s story was kept secret the last 13 months, hidden from the bright media spotlight that shines on this Southeastern Conference program, purposely buried deep in the Louisiana mud.
Last May, three months before the start of his first full season as LSU’s football coach, Ed Orgeron dealt with a family crisis, the matriarch of his five-person household clinging to life, the victim of a surgical mishap. Doctors punctured her colon, a hole that created a two-month ordeal so horrific, she says, that at one point Kelly wished she were dead.