SAN JOSE — There is a shelf in coach Brent Brennan’s office overflowing with books. One book, though, he keeps with him on his desk.
“The Magic of Thinking Big,” by David Schwartz, is filled with earmarked pages and scrawl-covered Post-it notes. The book spoke to Brennan’s ambition upon becoming San Jose State’s football coach in 2017. It’s a continuing ambition. Brennan has read the book at least four times.
“It’s a book about self-belief, that most people spend their lives telling themselves they can’t do big things,” Brennan said. “And I wasn’t going to let that be us.”
To understand Brennan, the coach, is to see his vision. He sees San Jose State football as an undervalued asset, a program that has the elements to capture the Bay Area’s imagination. A program that has accepted a life in the shadows of its neighboring Power Five schools, Stanford and Cal.
In his sixth season, Brennan, 49, has brought San Jose State football out of the darkness. He transformed a program that went 3-22 over his first two seasons into a Mountain West contender headed to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl after a 7-4 season. It will be the Spartans’ second bowl game in three years, following their appearance in the 2020 Arizona Bowl.
No SJSU coach has taken the Spartans to more than one bowl game in his tenure since Claude Gilbert did it in 1986 and 1987. But Brennan wants more.
He wants SJSU to be a perennial contender in its conference, not a Cinderella story. Not just an infrequent visitor to the Associated Press college football polls, but a regular.
“We’re trying to change the perception of our program here,” Brennan said. “It’s so undervalued and misrepresented. This is a special place.”
To build a contender, Brennan had to make San Jose State a destination. To do that, he hopes people can see SJSU through the rosy lens he always has.
“This isn’t just a job to him, this is the job to him in a lot of ways,” athletic director Jeff Konya said. “When you talk about him in recruiting and trying to get others interested — donors and sponsors — that is infectious and that passion will come through.”
Catch a glimpse of Brennan on the sideline, he’s cheering on his team, clapping his hands, shouting encouragement. Catch him on social media, he’s sharing the school’s athletic accomplishments and posting content with the team.
At every game since freshman running back Camdan McWright’s death in a scooter accident in October, Brennan has worn a t-shirt that commemorates McWright. He cares about his players and wants everyone to know it.
“How could you not want to play for this man? Miss you coach B!” posted former SJSU quarterback Nick Starkel on a video of Brennan wearing big yellow sunglasses, referring to himself as “Swaggy B.”
More than anything, Brennan wants to generate enthusiasm for a team that sparked his enthusiasm for football.
Brennan grew up rolling down the grassy hill where the new scoreboard now stands, watching games with his family at Spartan Stadium. His father, Steve, had played football at SJSU in the late 1960s. His mother, Beth, had been a cheerleader. So Spartans football became a family affair, as it has for him, his wife Courtney and their two high school-age daughters.
It was in high school, as a wide receiver at Saint Francis in Mountain View, that Brennan caught the coaching bug. He wanted to shape lives the way he saw coaches shaping his.
“I enjoyed my relationship with them,” he said. “They pushed me on the field, hard and demanding, but also made you better and made you elevate and I loved it. It was a cool way to help the next generation. That’s always been a huge part of it for me, the relationship with the players.”
Brennan took any coaching gig he could get, landing a few at summer camps and, eventually, back home to the Bay Area at Woodside High School. After stops at Hawaii, Washington, Arizona and Cal Poly, Brennan found himself back at SJSU in 2005 as an assistant to legendary coach Dick Tomey, his mentor until Tomey’s death in 2019.
After a pit stop as wide receivers coach at Oregon State, Brennan returned to his roots at SJSU, this time as head coach. But his homecoming was bittersweet.
Brennan’s father had died a year before.
“One of the biggest bummers for me with this job is that my dad doesn’t get to share it with me,” Brennan said. “I think it would have been incredible to share this journey with him. Dad loved people. I’m a lot like him in that way. I genuinely, genuinely enjoy people.”
By making the Spartans a brotherhood, a family of sorts, he hopes to create a program that athletes won’t want to miss out on. After taking over a downtrodden team six years ago he’s feeling that brotherhood manifest itself in success.
“Having gone through ups and downs and highs and lows, sticking with each other, that bond is really strong and they really care about each other,” he said. “There’s a special brotherhood with this team, and it’s so fun to be part of it.”
Take Chevan Cordeiro, the quarterback who transferred from his home state Hawaii to San Jose State last year. A toxic environment at Hawaii prompted his departure, but with Brennan’s team he found a home away from his hometown.
“He’s a great leader,” Cordeiro said. “We’re all following him. When we’re struggling he always has a smile on his face and gives us that mindset that we’re still going to win. We’re all going to follow him until we can’t. I couldn’t ask for a better leader.”
“I love playing for that guy,” said senior defensive lineman Kyle Harmon.
Brennan and his coaching staff treat the team like family. Often players will have dinners with their position coaches and savor time spent together everywhere from the film room to the weight room. That culture stems from Brennan, players say. And it has led this team to a promised land.
Two years ago, after the Spartans went 7-0 in the regular season, the University of Arizona expressed interest in Brennan as its head coach. He was named as a candidate in Stanford’s recent coaching search. The calls will continue. Brennan can’t imagine leaving now.
“I believe I am exactly where I’m supposed to be,” he said.
Join the Conversation
We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.