Bad news, drama fans: After a week of shocking twists and breathtaking revelations, freshman quarterback Brock Berglund has been granted a scholarship release from Kansas University. At last, a sense of normalcy may return to a frail, exhausted nation.
Kansas confirmed Berglund's release in a statement from coach Charlie Weis, who definitely did not pass the task off to a PR lackey:
"Today, Brock Berglund is released from his scholarship at KU to pursue other opportunities. Brock and his representatives have publicly stated their case without any public response from me to this point. Brock spent the majority of the past calendar year in Colorado taking online courses at KU's expense, which was nearly $40,000. At no time was Brock an active participant of the football team. Once competition was recruited at the quarterback position, Brock decided he no longer wanted to be a part of the team. He was expected to show up for a mandatory team meeting on Sunday, Jan. 15, but he sent an email less than two hours before the meeting to inform us that he had decided to transfer and would not be attending the meeting. He was dismissed after following through on that promise.
"Although Brock has been granted his release, I only wish that he had showed the same courtesy that other players showed and came to talk to me. He decided that he did not have to follow the same protocol as the other departing members of the football team. I believe no individual should be more important than the team. Brock did not see it that way."
Not content to merely take an aggrieved tone over a petty roster dispute, he goes out of his way to deliver a lecture on precisely how and why he's aggrieved. You know, just to be sure everyone understands who's really to blame for this situation: The 19-year-old kid. Even when he's doing the right thing, Weis can't quite bring himself to take the high road.
For his part, Berglund told the Doc's own Graham Watson earlier this month that he did meet with Weis once after Weis was hired in December, at which point Weis seemed excited that the legal issues that sidelined Berglund for the entire 2011 season were nearly behind him and he was going to be back on the field for the spring. However, subsequent meetings with quarterbacks coach Ron Powlus didn't quite as smoothly after Powlus told Berglund that Notre Dame transfer Dayne Crist was going to be the starter and Berglund would compete for the backup job.
With BYU transfer Jake Heaps also on his way in to take the reins in 2013, Berglund decided it was time for him to try his luck elsewhere. As for the mandatory team meeting that led to his dismissal, he said he spoke with his lawyer and worried that if he attended it would lock him into another semester in Lawrence.
"We had been talking about that meeting for a week or more and just how we were going to handle it," Berglund said. "In essence, once you show up on campus that day of that meeting, you would have locked yourself in for the next semester. And if you don't finish the semester you make yourself academically ineligible to transfer. So, that meeting marked a lot more than just a mandatory team meeting."
Boy, you can say that again, Brock. And so the curtain falls on our little drama, with Berglund finally getting his walking papers and Weis confirming that Kansas is getting exactly the coach it bargained for.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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