Every once in awhile, the NCAA actually gets one right. Joey Brunk, now in his second year with the Butler Bulldogs men’s basketball team, has been granted a hardship waiver after missing the majority of last season.
Butler’s Joey Brunk gets hardship waiver after caring for father with cancer
Brunk played just 7 games last season due to his father’s illness.
Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports
Brunk played in seven games with the Bulldogs last season, but did not play in a game after Dec. 10 after his father was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He spent the remainder of the 2016-17 season helping tend to his father, who died in April.
A top-100 recruit out of Southport, Indiana, Brunk was one of three finalists for the 2016 Indiana Mr. Basketball title. He continued to practice throughout last season, and has seen action in seven games so far this season. The Bulldogs are off to a 7-2 start, and Brunk is averaging 1.4 points and 2.1 rebounds in just over five minutes a game.
He is now a part of Butler’s four-member freshman class that includes three-star recruits Aaron Thompson, Christian David, Cooper Neese, and Jerald Butler.
According to the Indianapolis Star, Brunk received advice from former Bulldog Erik Fromm — whose father died from cancer in 2013 — to take advantage of all the time he had left with his dad.
Said Brunk: “That’s more important than anything I could have done last year. That’s something I’ll never regret or ever look back on.”
Chris Holtmann, now the head coach at Ohio State, recruited Brunk and had promised to coach him all four years of his career. Brunk signed his letter of intent with Butler and Holtmann got the job in Columbus, just two months after his father’s passing.
“My god, what a brutal conversation that was,” Holtmann told CBS Sports recently . “We were both crying. I said, ‘Joey, I’ve got something really hard I want to say to you.’ I had trouble getting it out. And he said, ‘Coach, I don’t want you to think I’m mad at you.’ He started crying, I started crying.”
Butler and Ohio State met in the fifth-place game during this season’s PK80 tournament in Portland, Ore., with the Bulldogs upending the Buckeyes in overtime after trailing by 15 late in the second half.
Brunk stated he has “...a renewed sense of appreciation and passion for all of this,” which shows in his actions during, and even before the game.
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