Michael Edward Shanahan was born on August 24,1952 and is an American former football coach, best known as the head coach of the Denver Broncos of the National Football League from 1995 to 2008.
31 Facts About Mike Shanahan
2.
Mike Shanahan's head coaching career spanned a total of twenty seasons and included stints with the Los Angeles Raiders and Washington Redskins.
3.
Mike Shanahan is the father of San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan.
4.
Mike 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.
5.
Mike Shanahan held the single-game rushing record of 260 yards on 15 carries until it was broken in 1976 by Dennis Cascio.
6.
Mike Shanahan was a quarterback at Eastern Illinois University, where he joined Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity.
7.
Mike Shanahan then returned to his alma mater as offensive coordinator and helped his school win the Division II football championship.
8.
Mike Shanahan worked as the offensive coordinator for the University of Minnesota for a single season, before accepting the same position at the University of Florida under head coach Charley Pell in 1980.
9.
Mike Shanahan first served as a receivers coach and later offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos under Dan Reeves from 1984 to 1987.
10.
Mike Shanahan was fired a couple years later by Reeves after finding himself in the middle of a growing feud between Reeves and quarterback John Elway.
11.
Mike Shanahan was hired by the Los Angeles Raiders in 1988 to replace longtime Raiders coach Tom Flores.
12.
Mike Shanahan was the Raiders' first head coach hired from outside the organization since Davis himself 23 years earlier.
13.
Mike Shanahan responded by firing running backs coach Joe Scannella and offensive coordinator Tom Walsh, but Davis ordered them both back to work.
14.
In 1992, Mike Shanahan was hired as offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers under Head Coach George Seifert, capping his rise with a victory in Super Bowl XXIX after the 1994 season.
15.
In 1994 while coaching for the 49ers, Mike Shanahan added to the ongoing feud between him and Raiders owner Al Davis when he had then quarterback Elvis Grbac throw a football at Davis' head, which missed by a few inches as Davis was able to dodge it just in time; afterwards Davis responded with an obscene gesture.
16.
Mike Shanahan 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.
17.
Mike 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.
18.
Mike Shanahan is known for an offense featuring zone running plays and play-action passes.
19.
Mike Shanahan 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.
20.
In 1999, with the assistance of writer Adam Schefter, Mike Shanahan penned Think Like a Champion, a motivational book about leadership; it was published by HarperCollins.
21.
In 2006, he cooperated with Stefan Fatsis's endeavor to spend a year as a Broncos place-kicker, and much of the resulting book A Few Seconds of Panic covers Mike Shanahan's coaching from the player's point of view.
22.
Mike Shanahan was fired after the 2008 NFL season following a collapse that caused the Broncos to miss the playoffs for a third consecutive year.
23.
On January 5,2010, Mike Shanahan was formally introduced as the Redskins' 24th full-time head coach.
24.
Mike Shanahan was one of several coaches who had the title or powers of general manager, along with New England's Bill Belichick and others.
25.
Mike Shanahan has not held a coaching position since his dismissal from the Washington Redskins in 2013.
26.
In 2016, Mike Shanahan was nearly hired as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins before they hired Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Adam Gase for the vacant spot on January 9,2016.
27.
Mike Shanahan is a Brother in the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity.
28.
In May 2008, Shanahan attended the wedding of George W Bush's daughter Jenna Bush, who was the former college roommate of Shanahan's daughter.
29.
In July 2016, Mike Shanahan hosted a fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
30.
In October 2016, Mike Shanahan spoke on Trump's behalf at a campaign rally in Loveland, Colorado.
31.
In October 2021, Mike Shanahan sold his mansion in Cherry Hills Village for a record $15.7M.