Saints’ Brenner Makes Education Work for Him

How’s this for an upset: Hoby Brenner chose to attend USC more because of its business school than its football program, he “didn’t even dream of playing pro ball” when he entered college, yet he went on to enjoy a long and prosperous NFL career.

So often, it’s the other way around--a high school athlete chooses college more for athletics than academics. He pins all his hopes on a pro career, then gets hurt or is not drafted. He has no degree to fall back on, no promising job prospects.

Every time Brenner speaks to junior high or high school students, the New Orleans Saints tight end stresses that education should be their first priority.

It was for him, and look what happened. Brenner has a college degree, he’s had a high-paying job for years, he’s nearing the end of his 13th--and most likely last--season in the NFL, and he’s about to move into the business world.

“I was just trying to get through school in four years and get an education,” Brenner, 34, recalled of his college years. “I was lucky enough to stay healthy, I had some good years and got drafted.”

Brenner, whose Saints were 23-20 losers to the Rams on Sunday, wasn’t exactly a major prospect when he graduated from Fullerton High School in 1977. He was a 6-foot-5, 205-pound, do-everything player on several mediocre Fullerton teams, and the highest honor he achieved was all-league his senior year.

USC noticed Brenner while studying game film of lineman Keith Van Horne during Brenner’s junior year. Van Horne was a big recruit--he was a Trojan All-American and is in his 13th season with the Chicago Bears.

Brenner? USC coaches offered him a scholarship hoping this fringe Division I prospect would fill out and develop into something bigger and better.

Brenner also had offers from Cal State Fullerton, Northern Arizona and Colorado State, more of a Who’s That? than a Who’s Who of college football. Brenner knew he had a better chance of playing at those schools, but what he really wanted was to work for a Southern California real estate development firm after college.

He chose USC, thinking the network of USC business school graduates in the area would be a major asset in his job search.

“I figured I’d have a little more of an ‘in’ than a Notre Dame grad,” Brenner said.

Then, strange things began to happen on the football field. Before his junior year, James Hunter, the starting tight end during Brenner’s sophomore year, pulled a hamstring. Brenner took over as starter, showed he could block as well as Hunter and brought an added dimension of pass-catching skill to the tight end position.

Brenner, who had beefed up to 240 pounds, held the starting job ahead of Hunter for two years, helping USC to an 11-0-1 record and Rose Bowl victory over Ohio State during the 1979 season and an 8-2-1 record in 1980.

Brenner played in only two tight-end situations as a sophomore, when USC went 12-1 in 1978, beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl and shared the national championship with Alabama.

Brenner could usually be found leading the way for tailbacks Charles White and Marcus Allen on USC’s famous 28-pitch play, and pro scouts took notice of his blocking ability. The Saints drafted him in the third round in 1981, and Brenner has been a starter for most of his 13 NFL seasons.

“If Hunter doesn’t pull a hamstring, I might not have gotten drafted,” Brenner said. “I made gradual improvement through college and got some breaks. I’ve seen a lot of guys at USC and with the Saints who could have played if they got the right breaks.”

Brenner has had a solid, if not spectacular, career with the Saints. He had two outstanding individual seasons, catching 41 passes for 574 yards and three touchdowns in 1983 and 42 passes for 652 yards and three touchdowns in 1985.

But it wasn’t until 1987, when the Saints had their first winning season in club history, that Brenner made his only trip to the Pro Bowl. He had marginal receiving stats (20 for 280 yards and two touchdowns) that year but earned more notoriety as a blocker leading the Saints’ ground game.

“Tight ends are usually measured by receptions, but they’re not a primary receiver in our offense,” Brenner said. “I’ve never gotten the pass attempts like other tight ends, so (making the Pro Bowl in 1987) was a nice honor.”

The year before Brenner arrived in New Orleans, 1980, the Saints were 1-15, and many fans watched games with bags over their heads. But Brenner has been in New Orleans long enough to see the Saints’ transformation from perennial pushovers to a contender in the NFC West.

The only problem is that Saint fans are no longer satisfied with four-victory seasons, as they were in 1981, or even playoff berths, which they earned in 1987, ‘90, ’91 and ’92. They’re hungry for a playoff victory , which would be another first.

“When we went 4-12 in 1981, people thought that was great because we were improving,” Brenner said. “But not winning a playoff game will be like a noose around everyone’s neck until we get out of it. We’ve had a couple of real heartbreakers in the playoffs, but we can’t exorcise those demons until we get another shot at it.”

After opening the 1993 season with five consecutive victories, most Saint fans seemed to forget about past playoff collapses, such as the 1992 game against Philadelphia, when the Eagles scored 26 consecutive fourth-quarter points for a 36-20 victory, or the 1991 game against Atlanta, when the Saints blew a fourth-quarter lead and lost, 27-20.

At 5-0, fans were thinking Super Bowl, not just playoffs.

But the Saints are 2-6 since and are struggling to make the playoffs.

“We started out like gangbusters, and we were on top of the world,” Brenner said. “Expectations were so high after our 5-0 start, and now we’re catching a lot of flak for what’s happened. It’s almost like we’re 1-15 again.”

Brenner’s season has mirrored the Saints’. He sprained an ankle and fractured a fibula in the team’s fifth victory, 37-6, over the Rams in Anaheim Stadium on Oct. 3, and missed five games. He returned Nov. 28 against the Minnesota Vikings and has only 11 receptions for 171 yards and a touchdown.

“A lot of injuries and other things caught up to us,” Brenner said. “But there’s so many teams that have had the same story this year. If you can catch fire in the end, I think there’s a good chance a wild-card team could make it to the Super Bowl.”

This will be Brenner’s last shot at an NFL championship ring. He hasn’t officially announced his retirement, but Brenner said he will most likely return to San Clemente after this season and begin working full time as a salesman in the family’s heavy construction supply business.

“It’s going to be a tough transition,” Brenner said. “The nice thing about football is you get immediate gratification--if you throw a good block or make a catch, there are immediate results. I don’t know if a 9-to-5 job would have that same gratification.

“But you get to a point when you’ve played as long as I have where you want to move on to something else. I feel a little like Nick Nolte at the end of ‘North Dallas Forty.’ It’s time to do something different.”