▶Colt Brennan, the Hawaii QB who was a 2007 Heisman finalist, dies at age 37./
Star excelled in college, but struggled with life after football career
Colt Brennan, a star quarterback at the University of Hawaii who finished third in the 2007 Heisman Trophy balloting, died early Tuesday, his father said. He was 37.
Brennan, who had public struggles with alcohol, died at a hospital in California, his father, Terry Brennan, told The Associated Press.
“He just spent one too many times on the dark side of life, and it caught up with him,” Terry Brennan said of his son.
Brennan transferred to Hawaii after stints at Colorado and Saddleback College in California. A certain pro prospect, he bypassed the NFL draft in order to play his senior year for Hawaii coach June Jones.
Brennan led the Warriors to their finest season ever, going 12-0 in the regular season.
In 2008, Georgia ended Hawaii’s hopes for an unblemished record, defeating the Warriors 41-10 in the Sugar Bowl.
He returned, in part, to pay back to a school and a coach that gave him a second chance, and he had no regrets.
“Hawaii has inspired me to do a lot of great things,” he told The Associated Press in 2007.
Jones, the former Hawaii coach now with the Houston Roughnecks of the XFL, called it a sad day for the islands.
“Colt was clearly the star of our program and what he did after the 2006 season by staying in school said a lot about him and how he cared much more about Hawaii and his teammates,” he said. “That’s something that doesn’t happen anymore.”
In a statement Tuesday, the university athletics department called the Irvine, California, native “the focal point of one of the greatest eras in Rainbow Warrior football.”
Brennan was drafted by Washington in the sixth round of the NFL draft in 2008, but he never played a regular season game in two seasons.
Life after football seemed difficult for him. His former attorney, Michael Green, told the AP in 2013 that the quarterback felt like he had disappointed people with his fledgling football career. He also said at the time that Brennan was still dealing with emotional and physical pain from a head-on crash on the Big Island in 2010.
He was arrested last November at his Big Island home after banging on a housemate’s door with a chair. When he entered the room, the 6-foot-3-inch Brennan fell on the roommate, causing both to fall to the floor. Brennan was arrested for disorderly conduct, the Hawaii Tribune-herald reported.
It was the second time in four months he had been arrested, In August, he was taken into custody for trespassing at a hotel after allegedly causing a disturbance and refusing to leave.
In both incidents, police described Brennan as being heavily intoxicated, the Big Island newspaper reported. The charge was later dismissed.
Brennan had been living at an addiction treatment center in Costa Mesa, California, and Terry Brennan said his son also had been a big user of marijuana. Terry Brennan took him to a hospital emergency room on Sunday because his son had been drinking. “I could tell he was not well and needed help,” Terry Brennan said.
But the detox facility was full, so without his family realizing it, Colt Brennan was released. He was unconscious when he was taken to the hospital, where he later died, his father said.
His family hopes that toxicology results and an autopsy — including tests on his brain to determine if there was degeneration from repeated head trauma — will give them answers.