AP Photo/Lucy PemoniFormer Hawai'i quarterback Colt Brennan, who died in May 2021, was posthumously diagnosed with Stage 1 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, according to Brandon Sneed of Sports Illustrated.
CTE is a degenerative brain disease caused by continuous blows to the head and is a major concern in the football community. Sneed reported Brennan's family donated his brain to Boston University's CTE Center since the disease can only be diagnosed postmortem.
While multiple brain injuries, including one from a 2010 car crash, and lost tissue due to the nature of his death after a drug overdose made it more difficult to examine his brain, Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the CTE Center, was still able to diagnose CTE and shared the news with Brennan's family on Thursday, per Sneed.
"It was enough to call CTE Stage I," McKee, who is a professor of neurology and pathology at Boston and the CTE Center director, said. "But it might've been greater had we been able to really assess other regions."
Sneed explained Brennan dealt with addiction following a 2010 car accident that eventually led to the end of his football career. While he found success at Tree House Recovery in Costa Mesa, Calif., he relapsed in May 2021 and was found unconscious and not breathing after a drug overdose.
He was in a coma and then died at the age of 37 from what the autopsy determined was the "combined toxic effects" of ethanol, methamphetamines, amphetamines and fentanyl.
Brennan was a prolific quarterback at Hawai'i and threw for an NCAA-record 58 touchdowns as a junior. He elected to return for his senior year and led the team to an undefeated regular season as a Heisman Trophy finalist—the school's first. He held 13 NCAA passing records at the end of his Rainbow Warriors career.
He was a sixth-round pick in the 2008 NFL draft but never appeared in a regular-season game at that level.
His family established the Colt Brennan Legacy Fund in Hawai'i after his death. The fund supports mental health causes and provides goods and services to people in Hawai'i.
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