See, was that so hard?
Following a scheduled appeals meeting with the University of Kansas Friday, the now-former quarterback Brock Berglund has been released from his scholarship and is free to pursue transfer opportunities.
Head coach Charlie Weis made the announcement today, which you can read below.
Berglund’s case was a bizarre one. The freshman was hit with a third-degree assault charge last year -- that charge was officially dismissed the other day -- which caused Berglund to miss the entire 2011 season as he worked through the required steps to receive that dismissal.
Then, as you’re all aware (hopefully), Kansas coach Turner Gill was fired and KU brought in Charlie Weis in December. According to Berglund via his representative, it became clear that Kansas would be starting transfer Dayne Crist next fall and Berglund wanted to begin looking around at other options.
Berglund’s representative then stated that Kansas would not release Berglund from scholarship and Weis later dismissed Bergland after the quarterback missed a mandatory meeting. It wasn’t until he won the appeals session today that Berglund was finally allowed to move on from the Jayhawks.
Anyway, below is the statement from Weis, effectively breaking Kansas’ silence on the matter*.“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 shown 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.”
This, of course, coming from the guy who is on his third job in as many years.
Look, Berglund obviously has issues that were more important than football, and Weis is going to do what every new coach does and boot players with a short leash from the team. It happens more often than we realize, and in this instance, the two sides are probably better off without each other.
Just release the kid from scholarship if it’s clear the relationship isn’t going to work out, especially if he’s no longer part of the team. Resisting it makes no sense whatsoever when coaches can -- and often do -- break contracts at their convenience.
(*note: Kansas could not comment on Berglund’s status before)