Sunday will see the 2-10 San Francisco 49ers play host to take on the 6-6 Denver Broncos in Week 14. Denver holds a special place in Kyle Shanahan’s heart, having spent much of his youth in Colorado.
For those of you unaware, San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan started to learn his craft from a young age. Having grown up around football and the NFL, he attained a special appreciation of how a team operated and was provided a rare insight into the heart of a locker room.
He is, of course the son of Mike Shanahan, who finished his NFL coaching career with the Washington Redskins. However, he is best known as the Denver Broncos head coach from 1995 to 2008. With so much of Shanahan’s life spent in and around Denver, it’s only natural that he have fond memories of the place that has in a way, shaped him to be the person he is today.
Shanahan delivered his thoughts and past memories of Denver during his Wednesday press conference:
Kyle Shanahan speaks with media ahead of matchup against the Broncos.
Posted by San Francisco 49ers on Wednesday, December 5, 2018
It was clear Shanahan enjoyed reminiscing about past events with his father, with that smile we have all become to know appearing on his face on more than one occasion. He couldn’t pinpoint one specific favorite memory from his time in Denver when Mike Shanahan was coaching.
Instead saying all of them were his favorites:
“It was a great time. I moved there three different times,” Shanahan said. “I never moved anywhere longer than four years, but I’ve always gone back to Denver. I moved back there my freshman year of high school after leaving there in sixth grade. Just going through that run in high school, they won their first Super Bowl my senior year in high school, which was real neat.”
Shanahan has previously commented about being his father’s “cord boy” on the sidelines, back before the days of wireless headsets. He again spoke on the subject and his experiences being right in front of the action.
“That was back when they didn’t have wireless cords,” Shanahan continued. “I was always the cord boy, holding my dad’s cords which got made fun of a lot for it, but it was neat to be up front and personal with everything. The last guy to hold cords for a coach in the Super Bowl was me. But, that stuff was really fun and even though you’re not a part of it, you feel like it as a kid and just being close with everybody and all the players and coaches.”
With the luxury of having a father as a previous NFL coach, Shanahan has long said that he will often run things by his father and ask for advice or input when required. With the 49ers season going from bad to worse, I suspect he has had some long conversations with his father this season.
“He does the same thing to me that I did to him my entire life,” the head coach stated. “No matter how busy he was, he had to make sure that he set some time aside to spend about 20 minutes to answer or return my phone call when I was in college so I could give him all the things that he did right and did wrong. He always took it. He does the same thing to me. I definitely listen to him more probably than he did to me because he definitely has a lot more knowledge than I did as a 16-year-old. But, having him as an asset is unbelievable.”
Shanahan continued to elaborate on how much of an asset his father is to him and how Mike Shanahan has helped transform him into the coach he is today.
“I’ve gotten my style from him, watching him my whole life,” Shanahan said. “I’m definitely my own person. I think anybody would tell you that who knows both of us. I think us working together was great because it was my first time working with him and so I got to really learn how he saw football and he got to see how I was too because he didn’t really know what I knew except what I would annoy him with on the phone.
Sometimes he would tell me some things that I didn’t like to hear and I would tell him sometimes things he didn’t like to hear. It was very constructive that way because sometimes you battle but you both get better from it when you respect each other and you can be brutally honest. I always want his opinion and he always has an opinion, but he gives it to me on everything.”
Having spent all those years under the guidance of his father, Shanahan certainly does have a special and unique relationship with him.
The San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos kick off at 1:05 p.m. PT on Sunday, Dec. 9 from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.