Remembering when Kyle Shanahan’s father nearly became Kentucky’s football coach
On Saturday, Dec. 9, 1989, Big Blue Nation was listening to Cawood Ledford describe the unbelievable happenings in Lawerence, Kan., where Rick Pitino’s first Kentucky basketball team was being blown out 150-95 by the host Jayhawks.
I was back in Lexington following Mike Shanahan around the University of Kentucky campus.
Yes, that Mike Shanahan, father of Kyle Shanahan, current coach of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers who on Sunday in Miami will play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 54.
Back then, Kyle Shanahan was five days away from his 10th birthday and his father was not yet the big deal he would become. Fired as head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders earlier that season, Mike Shanahan was quarterbacks coach of the Denver Broncos, and he was in Lexington to check out Kentucky’s opening.
After eight seasons as UK’s head coach, Jerry Claiborne had retired Nov. 28, 1989. At the time, I was the Kentucky football beat writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. As such, I was charged with covering the coaching search and then-UK athletics director C.M. Newton was keeping his thoughts close to the vest.
That was until we got a tip that Newton was pursuing a candidate with NFL experience. No sooner had we heard then when I got a Friday afternoon phone call from a Denver newspaper reporter who had been told off the record that Shanahan was set to interview with UK. The reporter said he just needed someone to verify the information.
A couple of phone calls later, that checked out. Then came another stroke of good reporting luck. I called the Broncos’ offices, asked to speak to Dan Reeves and the next thing I knew the Broncos head coach was telling me Shanahan was indeed on his way to Lexington.
Later that night, I arrived at Blue Grass Airport to find, if memory serves, WLEX’s Alan Cutler, followed shortly by UK assistant athletics directors Gene DeFilippo and Larry Ivy. The duo said there was time to kill and invited me to join them for a drink. In my paranoia, fearing a diversionary tactic, I declined. They were right, however. It was a while before Shanahan appeared, spoke a few words to the assembled media and was on his way.
Saturday was chase day. I followed Shanahan from Memorial Coliseum, to Commonwealth Stadium, to the Nutter Football Training Facility to the UK Administration Building. After every stop, Jim Terhune of the Courier-Journal and myself would get out of our cars, wait outside the building, then watch Newton and Shanahan emerge and go on their merry way.
Finally, before heading back to the airport, Shanahan stopped long enough to tell us he was impressed with the school and the facilities and was returning to Denver. We returned to our offices where for a week we tried to find out what would happen next.
A week later, Saturday, Dec. 16, the Broncos played the Cardinals in Phoenix. Word was UK had sent a plane to Arizona to pick up Shanahan after the game, bring him to Lexington and officially name him head coach. One problem, Shanahan never got on the plane. The next morning, Newton held a news conference to admit his leading candidate had turned him down down — “I regretted the decision, but respected it,” said the AD — but promised UK would hire a good coach.
Funny how things turned out. A month later, Newton lured Bill Curry from Alabama. Celebrated as a home run hire, Curry went 26-52 over seven seasons. Meanwhile, the 1989 Broncos lost 55-10 to the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV. In 1995, Shanahan was named head coach of the Broncos, where he won Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998. Fired after the 2008 season, he coached the Washington Redskins from 2010-2013. Kyle was his offensive coordinator.
On Sunday, Kyle hopes to join his father as the first father-son duo to win Super Bowls as a head coach. But I’ll be thinking of that December day 30 years ago and wondering what if things had turned out differently? What if Mike Shanahan had accepted the offer to become Kentucky’s head football coach? That, we’ll never know.
Super Bowl
Kansas City Chiefs vs. San Francisco 49ers
When: 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday
Where: Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.
TV: Fox-56
This story was originally published February 1, 2020 at 2:30 PM.
