
{"id":26692,"date":"2012-06-28T10:48:09","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T14:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=26692"},"modified":"2012-06-28T10:48:10","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T14:48:10","slug":"brennan-made-lasting-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/06\/28\/brennan-made-lasting-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Brennan made lasting impact"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Eddy Landreth<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20318\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20318\" style=\"width: 100px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/08\/18\/support-the-players-by-filling-kenan-stadium\/landreth-mug-30\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-20318\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"landreth-mug\" width=\"100\" height=\"134\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20318\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1-84x113.jpg 84w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/landreth-mug1-74x100.jpg 74w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20318\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eddy Landreth<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nTime can blur the lens into the past, skewing our appreciation for what once-great athletes accomplished.<\/p>\n<p>Pete Brennan, one of the 1957 national championship North Carolina Tar Heels, the 1958 ACC player of the year and a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, recently died of cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Tar Heel fans should remember him for all he did as a Carolina basketball player and as a distinguished alumnus. In recent years, I had the privilege to interview him on a couple of occasions, and he was a true gentleman.<\/p>\n<p>He relived his memories with a soft smile and grace.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost a bigger honor for my children and my grandchildren,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brennan said as he was about to be inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame a few years back. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe is that after 50 years, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still being honored. It just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem right. It would seem that would have ended a long time ago. I guess the \u00e2\u20ac\u212257 team struck a chord in the people of North Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hearts.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>He earned the honors. The irony is that it took those honors so many years later to awaken many to what he did.<\/p>\n<p>The Tar Heels won back-to-back triple-overtime games at the 1957 Final Four to win the championship. Without Brennan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s jumper to force the second overtime against Michigan State in the semifinals, the dream would have died that night.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, teammate Lennie Rosenbluth overshadowed Brennan from the outset because Rosenbluth was the leading scorer in school history until Phil Ford came along in the 1970s and Rosenbluth was the national player of the year, \u00e2\u20ac\u212257 ACC player of the year and the brightest star on the team that went 32-0.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Brennan was every bit as important. When Rosenbluth graduated in 1957, Brennan had one more year to prove it.<\/p>\n<p>Not only did he become the ACC player of the year, he was named a first-team All-American.<\/p>\n<p>Brennan averaged 23.7 points and 11.7 rebounds his senior year. He is 12th on the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career rebounding list, and he accomplished that feat in three years, because freshmen were ineligible when he played. Many of those ahead of him played four seasons.<\/p>\n<p>He averaged double figures in scoring 16.4 points and grabbing 10.5 rebounds for his career. That career rebound average remains third best in school history.<\/p>\n<p>Brennan was a native New Yorker, son of immigrants. So there were times when it all seemed somewhat overwhelming to him.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thanksgiving of my first year at Carolina, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m one of 10 kids, and I was homesick,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153After Thanksgiving, I came back and made the comparisons and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHow the hell can I be homesick?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 From that point on, I was in heaven, Blue Heaven.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153People ask where you went to school and I say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brennan said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153People say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcDid you play ball?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 And I say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcYeah, I played basketball.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 That is a very proud thing to say.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, we have now lost Brennan to this world, but the memory of his smile and his achievements in helping to create one of the greatest traditions in college basketball will live forever.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I look back on my life, you think maybe I shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have done this or shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have done that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brennan said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never doubted coming to the University of North Carolina. It was the right decision for me then. If I was coming today and knew what I know, it would be exactly where I would be coming.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time can blur the lens into the past, skewing our appreciation for what once-great athletes accomplished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":20318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[431],"class_list":["post-26692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26692"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26719,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions\/26719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}