A Rolovich friend and a former UH grad assistant returns

The Hawaii football team’s homecoming game Saturday will have special meaning for the visiting head coach.

In 1998, San Jose State’s Brent Brennan was a UH graduate assistant coach.

“That was my first college coaching job, when I was a GA there,” Brennan said. “I was coaching receivers. I had a really good group of kids: Wesley Morris, Dwight Carter. Ashley Lelie was a freshman. He was skinny as a stick, so we had to redshirt him. But it was fun days. It was a start on my path in the coaching profession. I really enjoyed my time with people I was working with there.”

Brennan and UH head coach Nick Rolovich met several years ago.

“When Nick first started coaching at Hawaii (as quarterbacks coach), I was still an assistant at San Jose State,” Brennan said. “We bumped into each other on the road.”

Brennan’s cousin, former UH quarterback Colt Brennan, was a common bond.

“That was kind of an easy segue,” Brennan said of his initial meeting with Rolovich. “We started talking. As fate would have it, he ended up in Nevada (as offensive coordinator in 2012).”

At the time, Brennan’s parents were living in Reno, a short distance from Nevada’s campus.

“My dad was really sick,” Brennan said. “He was battling cancer. And so Nick would stop in and check on my dad. That was the type of guy he was. When dad was going downhill … I was in Reno a lot. Nick would always come over, and sometimes we’d hang out and talk football; sometimes we’d just hang out and talk with my dad. It was pretty cool. That’s how the friendship started.”

The past few summers, their families would vacation together at Donner Lake in Northern California.

“It’s a great friendship,” Brennan said. “I’ve always had a really high level of respect for him and his offensive mind and him as a football coach.”

Brennan, who was hired as SJSU head coach in December, said Rolovich was among the coaches he sought advice from on such matters as organizing practice schedules.

“Coaching is one of the cool professions where you actually share information,” Brennan said. “It’s like Apple and Samsung don’t want each other to know their secrets. (In) football, there’s a lot more sharing that goes on. And, so, we’re all trying to get better at what we do. So you talk to people who you think are good at it, and I think Nick’s really good at it.”

Brennan said he and Rolovich talk to each other frequently during the offseason.

“He’s as good a friend as I have in coaching,” Brennan said, “which I’m sure will make this game 10 times as intense for the both of us.”