Sporting News feature article on JJ and Colt

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=261233

Asked how many times he heard at Hawaii that his offense was a gimmick offense and that he had system QBs, JJ said:
"Not just here. I heard it in the NFL, too." (SN)

SN Note: "Yet, somehow, Jones' offense keeps chugging along, setting records and making stars of skill players. The latest is Colt Brennan - the quarterback setting NCAA records by the bushel and the guy Jones says is a combination of Jim Kelly, Warren Moon and Jeff George."


Praising the way that Colt has led his offense, JJ said:
"No quarterback has played better in this offense." (SN)


About the adjustments in JJ's offense, Colt said:
"When you watch the NFL and college football, watch the quarterback. When something goes wrong, he'll step back and audible to the receivers and the offensive line. (In our offense) everybody has an option on every play. The center is fully in charge of the protection. The receivers are fully in charge of making the right adjustments, and as a quarterback, I have to catch the snap and go through the progressions." (SN)


About how he could have died in his car accident, JJ said:
"I should be dead. I walk around with that thought every day of my life." (SN)


About his Colorado incident, Colt said:
"I easily couldn't be playing college football right now. My life could be over." (SN)

SN Note: "This is the story of two men and two lives. And two destinies. Of two men who shouldn't be where they are yet are on the verge of something neither could have imagined. Of a culture that invites you into the warmth of its soul and the passion of its purpose. Of how much one football program can mean to so many people. Especially the fortunate ones."

SN Note: "Jones, 54, will begin his ninth season as head coach at Hawaii on September 1 with a home game against Northern Colorado. Less than a decade ago, school officials were debating whether a struggling program should move down to Division I-AA or be dropped. These days, Jones has an ultratalented team that is primed for an unbeaten season and a run at a BCS bowl game.

Brennan, 24, walked away from NFL millions earlier this year to return for his senior season at Hawaii. He grew up outside Los Angeles, was backup quarterback to Matt Leinart in high school and went from coast to coast to paradise, with stops at four schools in five years, before finally, stunningly, becoming a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate.

A horrific car accident in 2001 left Jones in a coma for two weeks and nearly dead. An accusation of sexual assault in 2004 left Brennan in legal limbo for nearly 16 months and facing years in prison. Now, with the most anticipated season in Hawaii history only days away, the long road back for each is nearing the final turn.

There's a traditional Hawaiian call to arms, a revered battle cry: Eo na toa! Eo na toa e! (pronounced a-oh-nah-towah, a-oh-nah-towah-a). It means: "This is battle. You must respond." The Polynesian warrior
culture is as much a part of the tiny Pacific islands as the surf and sun. It's about courage and mental fortitude, about facing challenges and persevering.

Jones and Brennan easily could have given up at any point and faded away. Instead, they responded--and are on the brink of something special."


About how he still thinks about his Colorado case, Colt said:
"Sometimes I'll be driving in my car and I'll get upset thinking about the case. I should've said this, I should've said that. Still to this day, it haunts me." (SN)


About the timing of Colt's incident, former Colorado coach Gary Barnett said:
"The timing of his issue was such that I had no choice. That incident alone at another time probably would've been dealt with a little differently." (SN)


About how being kicked off the team made it hard to clear his name, Colt said:
"The most frustrating thing is when you're really trying to present a sense of innocence and really trying to clear your name, that's what made it the hardest. I looked guilty by the way I was thrown off the team and kicked out of school." (SN)

SN Note: "Yes, he admitted he was drunk and that he made a mistake. But sexual assault? Brennan says he never touched the woman. Brennan was convicted of second-degree burglary and first-degree trespassing, both felony counts, and was sentenced to seven days in jail and four years of probation. He was not convicted of sexual assault; that charge was vacated because of a lack of evidence."


About Colt's case, the prosecutor Rob Shapiro said:
"We could have retried it, but given the case, the victim was happy with him being a convicted felon. I don't know Mr. Brennan, so I really can't speak to what kind of person he is. But he is an example of how rehabilitation can work." (SN)

SN Note: "Hawaii was recruiting a wide receiver on the Saddleback team, and while assistant coaches were watching tape, Warriors receivers coach Ron Lee blurted out: "Who's the quarterback?" Jones watched the tape, read the stories about Brennan and told his assistants to "find any dirt you can."


About how they investigated Colt's background, JJ said:
"We talked to everyone. His teachers, his friends, his family. Everyone said the same thing: What they say he did was totally out of character." (SN)

SN Note: "Brennan had a late scholarship offer from San Jose State but decided to walk on at Hawaii in June 2005 because of Jones' prolific offense and history of developing quarterbacks."


Colt recounts JJ's recruiting pitch:
"He told me, 'You come here, you'll be a fist-roundpick.' " (SN)


Asked to reflect on his life, Colt said:
"If you ask me, 'Would you have it the same way or never have gone through that?' I still would've chosen not to have gone through it and not have any of this now. I wish I could let it go because I should be enjoying myself way more right now and having way more fun. But it seems like all I do now is worry. The more success I have, the more I worry something like that could happen again." (SN)


SN Note: "A year after his car wrapped around a concrete pillar under an overpass on the H-1 freeway in Honolulu and his pretzeled body somehow came out of the mangled mess in one piece, Jones held a celebration of sorts at Murphy's Bar & Grill.

Everyone who was connected to that day -- doctors, surgeons, nurses, EMS personnel -- sat around a big table and drank in the joy of a life that shouldn't be but somehow is. Then, one by one, they stood -- more than 50 people connected with this walking, talking, living miracle -- and told their stories of that day in February 2001.

Jones sat at the table and wept."


Wondering how anyone could have survived the crash, paramedic John Kanaulu (first on the scene) said:
"I looked inside, and my first impression was he was dead. I reached inside and touched him, and he moved. And we were like, 'Whoa, he's still alive.' " (SN)

SN Note: "Jones suffered multiple injuries: head trauma, broken ribs, lacerated liver, a piece of his tongue had to be reattached, and he had more than 150 stitches on his face after his car went airborne and slammed into the pillar. Jones, who often gets less than four hours of sleep because of the long days he puts in at the office, fell asleep at the wheel at 10:30 a.m."


About falling asleep while driving, JJ said:
"I was driving, and then I woke up in the hospital." (SN)

SN Note: "Artie Wilson stood next in the bar that night. Jones and Wilson go way back as two kids from Portland who traveled to the islands for a high school basketball tournament in 1970 and told each other that one day they'd live and work there together.

Wilson, a former Hawaii basketball star, is Jones' business partner, confidant and, he says, brother. It was Wilson who stayed on the phone nonstop with Jones when the San Diego Chargers offered Jones, who finished the 1998 season as interim coach, everything he wanted to coach the team -- right down to paying for his 6-year-old son's college education. Yet Jones was having reservations and needed his friend.

The Hawaii job was open and school officials were flying to meet Jones in San Diego. Jones had gone back to the islands during his college career, transferring to Hawaii from Oregon in 1973 because a couple of quarterbacks named Dan Fouts and Norv Turner were ahead of him on the depth chart. Jones transferred to Portland State in 1975 and later came back to Hawaii in 1983 as quarterbacks coach. He stayed only one year but says he knew then that he wanted to come back someday if the school ever asked him to be head coach and the time was right.

Jones and Wilson agreed that Jones would wait to hear what Hawaii had to say before he made a decision about the Chargers' job. Hawaii's offer to Jones was $350,000 a year -- $750,000 less than the Chargers' offer.

And he took it. Yeah, he wanted to come back.

Now Wilson was standing at that bar in front of everyone, talking about his friend, about how a black kid and a white kid from different worlds found each other during tough racial and social times in the late '60s and became inseparable."


About getting a phone call from school officials on that day asking what was JJ's license plate number, Artie Wilson said:
"They told me someone was in an accident and they think it's June, but they couldn't tell who it
was. All they knew was the tag number on the car." (SN)


About seeing JJ as he was being taken to surgery, Wilson said:
"I thought it was the last time I would see my friend." (SN)

SN Note: "Wilson later learned from the cardiovascular surgeon that Jones' aorta had torn. That same surgeon stood at the bar and underscored the unthinkable: If an aorta tear isn't found in 15 minutes, 99 percent of those affected die. It took surgeons four hours to find the tear in Jones' aorta."


About JJ surviving the accident, Kanaulu said:
"It defies all logic. We all have our theories about why he survived. Maybe his collapsed lung pressed against the aorta and put pressure on the tear. Maybe his blood pressure was low at the time and that's why he didn't bleed out. But God saved this man for a reason." (SN)

SN Note: "Maybe Jones, who missed only spring practice while recovering, was saved because there was more work to be done. When he took over at Hawaii in 1999, the team had 17 Polynesian players on the roster and had lost 18 straight games. Entering the 2007 season, 79 of the 105 players on the team are Polynesian. Jones recognized the need to reconnect the program to its people. Polynesian players who had lost hope in playing at Hawaii -- and representing their people -- were embraced again. Their sense of being -- who they are and what they mean -- was restored. Everyone on the islands began to care about football again.

No wonder the turnaround was so quick. Hawaii lost to USC by 55 points in the 1999 season opener. A week later, the 19-game losing streak ended with a win over Eastern Illinois. The Warriors went 9-4 that season after going 0-12 in 1998 -- the biggest turnaround in NCAA history.

In eight seasons at the school, Jones has 64 wins and is 4-1 in bowl games. His teams have beaten BCS heavyweights Alabama, Michigan State, Purdue and Arizona State, and this team has much ahead of it this season."


About how nothing can replace his first win at UH in 1999, JJ said:
"Twice in the first few years here it hit home, what this was all about. After that first win, the Polynesian kids were laying on the field and crying. So much bottled up emotion, so much for the team, their families, their people." (SN)


About the second time things hit home, JJ mentioned the 1-year gathering after his accident:
"That night at Murphy's." (SN)


Asked by a young boy after practice if he remembers him, Colt said:
"I spoke to your class this spring, right?" (SN)

SN Note: "A big season could vault Brennan to the top of the first round of the draft and could have NFL teams again looking at Jones -- a guy whose pass-happy offense was successful in the stodgy NFL, the coach who led the Falcons to the playoffs, the coach the Chargers desperately wanted. Two men who shouldn't be where they are, on the verge of something neither could have imagined."


About wanting to repay UH with an unforgettable season, Colt said:
"Sometimes I find myself keeping that pain of the case and using it as motivation. To be a better person, a better teammate. I want so much to give this university and my teammates something they will remember forever. They took a chance on me, and I want to repay them." (SN)