John Brennan lost his life watching his beloved Johnnies.
The championship-winning St. Francis Prep boys and girls high school tennis coach, who attended St. John’s and played a year of freshman basketball at the school before turning to tennis, was in attendance during last Sunday’s victory over Connecticut at the Garden and suffered a hemorrhagic stroke late in the win.
Garden security took him to nearby Mount Sinai West Hospital in Midtown, where he passed at the age of 73.
“He was a superfan for St. John’s basketball,” his brother Kevin said in a phone interview. “It’s a shame he lost his life in such a great season.”
Brennan survived two bouts with oral cancer separated by 28 years.
Sixty percent of his original tongue had to be replaced with tissue from his right wrist and his jaw was restructured with muscle from his fibula. Three major operations couldn’t slow him down.
He worked at St. Francis Prep in Queens for 33 years and was still coaching the boys and girls tennis teams, the programs he built into among the city’s best.
The girls won the Catholic league city championship in the fall.
He developed them into a powerhouse, leading the program to a winning streak of 203 consecutive matches that was snapped in 2012.
The Terriers had won 12 straight Mayor’s Cup titles at that point. In 2014, he was inducted into the school’s Terrier Red & Blue Ring of Honor.
Brennan was also a certified tennis pro at the North Shore Tennis Club and won 25 titles combined between the boys and girls.
“Unfortunately, very few tennis professionals coach high school tennis,” Brennan once wrote in NY Tennis Magazine. “If they committed to coaching at the high school level and recognize the privilege it truly is, I believe they would become better tennis instructors. When you coach a team, you have a variety of levels to develop, a limited amount of time to do it in, and a test on just how you are doing every couple of days.”
Brennan had season tickets to St. John’s games at Carnesecca Arena for two decades and would attend a few contests at the Garden every season.
“He really loved the job that Rick Pitino was doing for St. John’s,” Kevin said. “He couldn’t stand UConn, couldn’t stand Danny Hurley. He lived and died with that team. He’s been rooting for them forever. This was sort of the payoff season. Maybe he can see them in the next life.”
