Mike Shanahan

Two-time Super Bowl champion head coach of the Denver Broncos.

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Michael Edward Shanahan (born August 24, 1952) is an American former football coach, best known as the head coach of the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL) from 1995 to 2008. During his fourteen seasons with the Broncos, he led the team to two consecutive Super Bowl victories in XXXII and XXXIII; along with being the first Super Bowl championships in team history, they were the seventh team to win consecutive Super Bowls in NFL history. His head coaching career spanned a total of twenty seasons and also included stints with the Los Angeles Raiders and Washington Redskins. He is the father of San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan.

Quick Facts

Born: 24 August 1952
Birthplace: Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.
High school: East Leyden (Franklin Park, Illinois)
College: Eastern Illinois (1970–1972)

Lore & Background

Shanahan played high school football at East Leyden High School, Franklin Park, Illinois, where he played wishbone quarterback for coach Jack Leese's 1968 and 1969 Eagles teams. He held the single-game rushing record of 260 yards on 15 carries (set in a 32–8 win over Hinsdale South on September 20, 1969) until it was broken in 1976 by Dennis Cascio but is now held by Angel Maldonado with 312 yards on 25 carries in 2009. He graduated from high school in 1970. He was a quarterback at Eastern Illinois University, where he joined Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. In 1972, a piercingly hard hit on the practice field ruptured one of his kidneys, which caused his heart to stop for thirty seconds and nearly killed him. A priest was summoned to administer the last rites to Shanahan, a devout Roman Catholic.

Reader's Guide

Shanahan's success with the 49ers earned him a head coaching spot once more, this time back in Denver with the Broncos beginning in 1995. He led the Broncos to back-to-back Super Bowl championships in the 1997 and 1998 seasons, during which time the Broncos set a then-record for victories in two seasons. Between 1996 and 1998, the Broncos set the NFL record for victories by going 46–10 over a three-year span. The 1998 Broncos won their first 13 games on their way to a 14–2 mark. Shanahan, taking his cue from West Coast offense guru Bill Walsh, was well known for scripting the first 15 offensive plays of the game, and helped the 1998 Broncos set an NFL record for first quarter points scored in a season. In 2005, he passed Dan Reeves as the winningest coach in franchise history. Shanahan is known for an offense featuring zone running plays and play-action passes. He has often found unheralded running backs from later rounds of the annual NFL draft and then turned them into league-leading rushers behind small-but-powerful offensive lines. Examples of this phenomenon are Terrell Davis, Mike Anderson, Olandis Gary, Clinton Portis, Reuben Droughns and Tatum Bell, all of whom have had at least one 1,000-yard season in a Denver uniform during Shanahan's tenure.