San Jose State football head coach Brent Brennan is more than a coach to his players, he’s a father figure for their brotherhood.
“He treats everybody like we’re his family, like his actual relatives,” senior linebacker, Tysyn Parker said over Zoom.
A San Jose native himself, Brennan is in his fourth season as head coach of the football team.
He began coaching football at SJSU in 2005 and stayed until 2010 as an assistant coach under Dick Tomey and Mike MacIntyre.
Brennan coached receivers at Oregon State starting in 2011 before returning to SJSU in Dec. 2016 as head coach, according to the SJSU Athletics website.
Brennan said it’s exciting to go through new challenges with a team he hasn’t experienced before.
“I’m still in the early stages of [coaching] I think, so you know there’s no manual for,” Brennan said in a Nov. 14 postgame Zoom conference. “You know I’m learning every day, it’s really special man, I just love coming to work every day and I’m so grateful for the effort that everyone’s putting in trying to build a consistent successful program here.”
Senior tight end Jackson Burrill said his experience with Brennan has been incredible since the coach joined the team his freshman year, and he’s been a steady component throughout many moving pieces.
“I can’t even imagine playing college football with a different coach,” Burrill said over Zoom. “He’s this cooling presence [and] you know he’s got your back, so that’s been super important to us.”
Blake Sasaki, senior associate athletic director of external relations at SJSU, said Brennan is building the team the right way to foster a successful and sustainable program for years to come.
“Coach Brennan has done an amazing job of changing the culture around this football team,” Sasaki said in an email.
Burrill said Brennan has made sure players are taking advantage of the education they receive at SJSU.
“He really helped me academically, along with football,” Burrill said. “I’m on the honor roll every year [and] every semester.”
He said Brennan makes sure the team has help from academic advisers throughout their college career. Brennan would not only support his players in academics’ but ensured advisers were serving players in the best possible way.
“He makes academics a very high priority on his list for us, he really cares about our academics and making sure we graduate,” Burrill said.
Having such a non-traditional year in the sports world, Brennan had to make adjustments when the coronavirus outbreak began shutting everything down.
One of the biggest challenges COVID-19 brought to the team was months of remote training in spring and summer. Burrill said that didn’t stop team bonding from being Brennan’s priority.
“He made some pure genius coach Brennan ideas [and] created a Facebook group where everyday we will be posting about what we’re doing to help the team or help each other,” Burrill said. “The Facebook group was awesome, it was really awesome.”
Brennan has constantly inspired teammates like Parker, who said he really appreciates all of the coach’s work throughout his time at SJSU.
“I really appreciate everything that he’s done, [having] him get some national spotlights and recognitions for the job he’s done for us, the program and for the rest of us,” Parker said. “I wish for nothing more than the best for him [and] I hope the cycle keeps going and the Spartans keep doing well and he’s doing well.”
Parker said Brennan hasn’t just made the team better football players but better men overall.
“We just appreciate everything [he’s] done and being [so] devoted to the process and just making our guys better men and not
just football players,” Parker said.
