Great Mt Carmel coach.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/platfo...t-carmel-football-player-and-coach-dies-at-93
Coach Brennan led the Caravan for 4 seasons and compiled a record of 36-6, winning 3 city championships (1950, 1951, and 1952). The 1950 team is regarded as the greatest Illinois high school football team of its era.
MC:
Thanks for posting this. Notre Dame sent out an e-mail announcing Mr. Brennan's death the other day. I was saddened.
I never met the former ND coach and only saw him once at Mount Carmel for a halftime reunion of former MC head coaches, but I am familiar with two of his sons, both of whom have strong connections to LA.
I won't write a long missive here, but I do want to say I was pleased Brennan lived a long, rich life after his ouster from Notre Dame. Brennan came to ND at a very young age and was filled with promise. Because of his brilliance on the football field as a player, much was expected of Brennan as a coach. One can only imagine what Brennan experienced assuming control over the storied football program at such a tender age and taking the reins from a legend, Frank Leahy. Unfortunately, the conditions which had flourished at ND for decades abruptly changed shortly after he was named head coach and this made maintaining a successful football program far more challenging for Brennan than it had been for his predecessors.
Though Brennan never enjoyed the kind of success prior coaches at ND did, I am sincerely pleased he can no longer be held up to ridicule the way he was after his departure from Notre Dame. In comparison to several coaches who followed him, Brennan's 32-18 record is respectable.
To his good fortune, Brennan can never be mentioned with less-successful coaches who followed him and the man lived long enough to see the publication of a book dedicated to one of Notre Dame's greatest victories, the 1957 shut-out of Oklahoma, which ended the Sooners' 47-game win streak.
R.I.P Coach Brennan............
