The father of former Tennessee running back Bryce Brown made some waves earlier in the week when he appeared on a Knoxville radio and said he planned to hire an attorney and possibly sue both the university and head coach Derek Dooley.
While he has retained the services of a lawyer, there won’t be any suing going on. We think.
Speaking to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville attorney Greg Isaacs said that the Brown family will not pursue legal action against any entity connected to the school over their failure to release Bryce Brown from his Volunteers scholarship.
“After reviewing the matter, we’ve decided not to initiate any legal action against the University of Tennessee, contrary to earlier reports,” Isaacs said Friday about reports that came from one of his clients and wasn’t media-generated.
“The family has no animosity toward the university. Bryce is a good kid. Bryce wants to make sure that everything is positive. (The Browns) want to make sure there’s no ambiguity about whether Bryce and his family enjoyed and respected their time here at the University of Tennessee.”
Even as he wasn’t released from his scholarship, Brown has transferred to Kansas State and will sit out the 2010 season before suiting up for the Wildcats in 2011. However, because he wasn’t given a release by Dooley because he didn’t meet the coach’s three requirements, Brown will have to pay his own way through school this year.
The Brown family isn’t let the matter drop completely, though. In the next ten days or so, Isaacs will petition the school on behalf of Bryce Brown to reconsider their decision regarding the scholarship.
“We plan to, in the very near future, petition the university athletic department to reconsider their position regarding releasing Bryce,” Isaacs said.
“This is out of the spirit of respect. Bryce is a talented athlete with a very close family that’s going to have a great future. We want to make sure that that message doesn’t get lost in the sports-talk squabble, so to speak.”
We’ll leave it to y’all to determine what the “spirit of respect” should be when it comes to the circus that has been, and is continuing to be, Bryce Brown and his entourage, related or not.