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 spent too many occasions on the shadowy side of existence, and it caught up with him” Terry Brennan said of his son.
Brennan moved to Hawaii later stints in Colorado and Saddleback College in California. A particular pro prospect following a record-breaking junior season, he jumped the NFL draft so as to perform his senior season for Hawaii coach June Jones.
Brennan led the Warriors into its best season , going 12-0 at the regular season.
In 2008, Georgia stopped Hawaii’s hopes to get an unblemished record, beating the Warriors 41-10 from the Sugar Bowl.
“Hawaii has motivated me to do a great deal of things,” he told The Associated Press in 2007.
Jones, the former Hawaii coach today with the Houston Roughnecks of the XFL, known as it gloomy day for those islands.
“Colt was obviously the star of our schedule and what he did following the 2006 year by remaining in college said a great deal about him and the way he cared more about Hawaii along with his teammates,” he explained. “That is something that does not occur anymore.”
In a statement Tuesday, the college sports department known as the Irvine, California, indigenous”the focus of one of the most significant eras in Rainbow Warrior football”
“He was a phenomenal player and supplied us a few of the best sports memories we will ever have. However he had been over that,” the announcement said. “For all that he achieved on the soccer field and the adulation he received for this, he always stayed one of the people. He never turned down an autograph, he turned down an image with a person.”
In just two seasons.
Life after football appeared difficult for him personally. His former lawyer, Michael Green, told the AP at 2013 the quarterback felt as though he’d frustrated people together with his fledgling football profession. In addition, he said in that Brennan was dealing with physical and emotional pain from a head-to-head wreck on the Big Island at 2010.
He had been arrested last November in his Big Island house after banging a housemate’s door with a seat. When he entered the living area, the 6-foot-3-inch Brennan dropped on the hive, causing the two to collapse to the ground. Brennan was detained for disorderly behavior, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported.
This had been the second time in four weeks he was detained, In Augusthe had been taken into custody for trespassing in the Kona Seaside Hotel after allegedly causing a disturbance and refusing to depart.
In both events, authorities clarified Brennan as being heavily drunk, the Big Island paper reported. The charge was subsequently dismissed.
In December 2019he had been detained on Oahu for driving under the influence, with no insurance and leaving the scene of an crash.
Four years before he had been charged with submitting a false report that his car has been stolen, the paper reported. That case was later disregarded.
In 2010, he had been a passenger in an SUV which was included in a head-to-head wreck on the Big Island.
It was not the first time that he had a concussion.
He advised the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that year he was 14, in his final year old Pop Warner youth football, when he had a very bad concussion. But that harm did not make him wish to give up the game.
Brennan, who had used a cane and wore a leg brace, went to California a couple of months back for rehabilitation due to his injuries, such as blood clots in his legs, his dad said.
Brennan was residing at an addiction treatment centre in Costa Mesa, California, and Terry Brennan said that his son had been a huge consumer of marijuana. Terry Brennan took him into a hospital emergency room on Sunday since his son was drinking.
However, the detox center was complete, so with no loved ones realizing that it, Colt Brennan premiered. He was unconscious when he had been shot back to the hospital, where he afterwards died, his dad said.
“They introduced him on the road and he made a telephone or he obtained Uber or something,” Terry Brennan stated. “And this is what we’re managing.”
He had been surrounded by relatives when he expired.
“His sisters made certain that he had the Bob Marley music moving by his side,” Terry Brennan stated of this reggae his son was fond of out of his time in Hawaii.
Hawaii was significant to him. “It had been his property.”
His family expects that toxicology results along with an autopsy — such as tests on his mind to find out whether there was degeneration from recurrent head injury — will provide them answers.
Authorities are also investigating, his dad said.
Brennan’s name remains on Hawaii’s all time records, such as accounting for a college listing 131 touchdowns from 2005 to 2007. Throughout his leading Hawaii profession, Brennan tied or broke 31 NCAA records.
In 2006, he place a then-school listing for 569 yards passing from Arizona State University at a bowl game. He completed his career with 20 matches with 400 or more yards and four matches with 500 or more yards.
“I recall the very first time that I met himhe had that swagger about himsuper-confident, did not care of what people believed and it actually performed on the area,” his former teammate Mike Lafaele explained. “What a fantastic leader he had been off and on the field. “