I got a text from my friend Anne early in the morning on May 11:
“Sjarif I am so upset about Colt Brennan …”
I hadn’t heard the news, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what she was talking about, and soon enough my fears were confirmed.
Legendary University of Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan had died of a drug overdose at age 37. I wouldn’t say the news was expected, but neither was it surprising.
Brennan, whose number was retired Saturday with his family in attendance for an emotional ceremony at halftime of UH’s win over New Mexico State, had battled addiction for the better part of a decade. He’d had run-ins with the police — driving under the influence, trespassing — related to drug and alcohol use.
I didn’t know Brennan. One 20-minute phone interview about a decade ago was the extent of our interactions. Besides him being almost certainly the greatest athlete in the history of my alma mater, at least in terms of what he did at the university, he also seemed like a genuinely good dude in that call. Everything I’ve heard from anyone who’s interacted with him backs up that impression.
So it was a miserable start to the day for me.
Brennan died of a fentanyl overdose, which hit home for me. My cousin Jason died five years ago, also fentanyl-related.
Though Jason grew up across the country in Massachusetts and we never met until we were 12, we became close quickly when my family visited his more than 30 years ago. We rode bikes down to the mall to see movies and played Wiffle ball in the street.
A few years later, he came to Hawaii with our grandpa for my sister’s wedding and we had even more opportunity to bond, playing basketball and listening to music. He got me into Van Halen and the Violent Femmes. He tried to tell me how great Guns N’ Roses were, but I admit it took me a few more years to appreciate them.
Sadly, that was the last time I saw Jason. We wrote for a while after that and talked on the phone a few times, but he moved all over the country and was never around on my subsequent visits. He had problems with drugs and served some time in prison.
Jason eventually made it back to Massachusetts, but I haven’t been back myself in more than 20 years now, and he died before I got a chance to visit.
So Brennan’s death brought some of the emotions of Jason’s death back to me.
I’m guessing that wasn’t the case for all of Hawaii, but public reaction was overwhelming sadness as well. Brennan authored some of the greatest moments in UH sports history, after all, so that was no surprise. But I was relieved that there was also … compassion.
Our society can be quite judgmental when it comes to addiction, along with homelessness. Those two issues have a good deal of overlap, and both seem to evoke little sympathy from a significant portion of the population.
When the average person dies of a drug overdose, the sentiment from too many is “they deserved it” or “well, they shouldn’t have done drugs.”
Heck, we even see it sometimes when the person is famous — and when the person dies of something besides drug use. Erin Moran was “America’s sweetheart” when she starred as Joanie Cunningham on the hit sitcom “Happy Days” in the 1970s. She and co-star Scott Baio even got an ‘80s spinoff, “Joanie Loves Chachi.”
Well, Baio showed no love for Moran when she died of cancer in 2017, blaming her past struggles with drugs and alcohol and saying in a radio interview he was “not completely shocked,” because “you do drugs or drink, you’re gonna die. I’m sorry if that’s cold, but God gave you a brain, gave you the will to live and thrive and you gotta take care of yourself.”
That’s an extreme example, but the general sentiment is common — that people who die of drug-related causes are less deserving of our kindness and understanding.
Baio’s misdiagnosis aside, let’s dig a little deeper into Moran’s case. According to her brother Tony, in an interview with the International Business Times, Moran turned to drugs when producers on “Happy Days” told her she needed to lose weight. If true, they preyed on her professional insecurity in an attempt to get her to conform to societal standards for women of what is attractive.
My point is that thousands of people die of overdoses every year — that number has surged in recent years with the ravages of opioids — and thousands more (if not millions) battle addiction. Rather than judge, let’s show them all the same understanding we showed Colt.
Brennan already has a great legacy built on his football exploits. Let’s hope his legacy can also be about how we empathize with people dealing with and dying from addiction.
