Former Gators defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, now Atlanta's head coach, talks with offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan at practice. (Photo: Getty Images)
Super Bowl LI: Kyle Shanahan Once Rambled Around Gators
Sunday, February 5, 2017 | Football, Scott Carter
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Atlanta offensive coordinator's love of football started when his father Mike Shanahan was Florida's offensive coordinator in early 1980s.
By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Mike Shanahan has a sharp memory and a good story ready when the caller begins to quiz him about his time as Florida's offensive coordinator.
Shanahan was hired by Charley Pell to run the Gators' offense after Pell's disastrous 0-10-1 debut season in 1979. Shanahan had just finished his first season as offensive coordinator at Minnesota and was an up-and-comer in the business. When the defensive-minded Pell went searching for a play-caller, former Dallas Cowboys vice president of player personnel Gil Brandt suggested Shanahan, who was in his late 20s at the time.
"By the time he moved to Florida, he had already moved six times,'' said Lee McGriff, a former Gators receiver, coach and current radio analyst. "He was after it."
Shanahan wanted to be a head coach one day so he packed up his playbook and moved to Florida with his wife Peggy and their infant son Kyle. Shanahan immediately made an impact as the Gators opened the 1980 season with back-to-back wins against Cal and Georgia Tech, scoring 40-plus points in both games.
The Gators went from no wins to eight wins, the biggest one-season turnaround in college football. As Shanahan's reputation as a gifted offensive mind grew in four seasons at Florida, so did his family. The Shanahans' daughter Krystal was born in Gainesville and Kyle advanced from toddler to a practice companion of his dad.
As for that story about his time with the Gators that Shanahan instantly recalled, Kyle played a starring role depending on how you look at it.
Kyle Shanahan, left, and his father Mike talk during their time together with the Washington Redskins. (File photo: Getty Images)
In the second game of the 1982 season, the Gators faced Southern Cal at Florida Field in one of the most anticipated home games in school history. Both teams were ranked and the Gators were coming off a season-opening win over in-state rival Miami.
As Shanahan prepared to call a play in the second quarter, he heard Peggy being paged over the loudspeakers in the press box.
"I'm thinking, 'what in the heck just happened?' " Shanahan said. "There had to be an emergency."
Shanahan asked someone to go check out what was wrong. When he found out the problem, he knew when he got home there would be a mess. Turns out that Kyle was at home with a babysitter and turned on the bathroom faucet and left it running.
By the time the babysitter noticed, water had started to flood the Shanahans' sunken living room. She tried to turn off the faucet without any luck. Time to call the parents.
"In our days at Florida and you ask me about Kyle, that's the first thing that comes to my mind," Shanahan said. "Kyle was able to come with me on the practice field and just run around and be around football. It was great for us because we loved Gainesville, and it was a great place to raise kids."
Fortunately, the Gators beat USC 17-9 to make the mess at home more bearable.
Kyle Shanahan is all grown up now, preparing for an opportunity to do what his father did three times in his NFL coaching career: win a Super Bowl. Mike Shanahan was an offensive coordinator in three Super Bowls, twice losing with Denver before raising the Lombardi Trophy as San Francisco's offensive coordinator in 1994.
He later led Denver to back-to-back Super Bowl wins as head coach with NFL Hall of Famer John Elway at quarterback. Kyle and Mike embrace after the Broncos won the 1998 Super Bowl. (File photo: SI.com)
Mike Shanahan has been out of coaching for more than three years now, his last time on the sideline in 2013 at the end of a four-year stint as head coach of the Washington Redskins.
If the 64-year-old Shanahan never draws up another play, those years with the Redskins are ones he will cherish due to the experience of working with Kyle, who served as Washington's offensive coordinator.
The Shanahans made the playoffs together in Washington but failed to reach the Super Bowl. However, both will be at Super Bowl LI on Sunday when Atlanta and New England meet on the biggest stage in sports.
Mike and Peggy planned to arrive in Houston on Friday as fans. Kyle has been there all week. In his second season as Atlanta's offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan will be calling plays for the Falcons' high-powered offense.
"It will be really just my second Super Bowl other than when I was in it as a coach," Mike Shanahan said this week. "To go there with your son coaching is always a dream come true. If you don't take advantage of that opportunity, you are left with not knowing for sure if you will ever get that opportunity to go there again."
Kyle Shanahan, 37, is set to become head coach of the San Francisco 49ers after the Super Bowl. A former receiver at Texas, Kyle has developed an offensive system that is much like his father, who was nicknamed "The Mastermind" for his innovation.
Kyle began his coaching a career as a graduate assistant at UCLA and then a quality control coach for Jon Gruden in Tampa. He then went to Houston as an assistant for Gary Kubiak and spent his final two seasons with the Texas as offensive coordinator before joining Mike in Washington.
Kyle told reporters in Houston this week that while his father didn't push him into coaching and suggested other professions at times when Kyle was young, the pull to the field was too great.
"Football was a passion of mine from the beginning,'' he said. "That made it easy to get into coaching."
When Mike was head coach at Denver, Kyle often followed him around on the sideline holding the cables to Mike's headphones. He noticed Kyle's natural football IQ when Kyle was in high school and college.
"He went to Duke and then transferred to Texas, and just loved playing,'' Mike said. "He broke the game down as a wide receiver like few guys I've ever watched. He could take a look at the film and break it down, and I don't care if it was Jerry Rice, John Taylor, he'd have every route broken down. He really took a lot of pride in it."
Kyle was hired in Atlanta by former Gators defensive coordinator Dan Quinn when Quinn took over the Falcons prior to the 2015 season. The moved has turned out well with Atlanta's offense rolling behind quarterback Matt Ryan to help the Falcons advance to the Super Bowl for only the second time in franchise history.
McGriff decided to exit coaching during Mike Shanahan's time at Florida. Despite Shanahan pushing McGriff to take a job as offensive coordinator at Iowa State in the early 1980s, McGriff's ties to Florida were too strong to break.
He started a successful insurance business in Gainesville and remains close to the program as the radio partner of play-by-play voice Mick Hubert.
McGriff and Shanahan have remained close in the 30 years since they were on Pell's staff together. Peggy Shanahan and Margie McGriff, their wives, are close friends too. And Kyle Shanahan and Britt McGriff, Lee's son, maintain a friendship built when the Shanahans lived here. Mike Shanahan
The Gators job was Mike Shanahan's last college stop before the NFL. He makes regular trips back to UF to catch up with old friends.
"To start off with those type of memories is special,'' he said. "We've always followed them throughout the years wherever we've gone."
Today is different. Mike Shanahan is the sidebar and Kyle the lead story.
All eyes are on Kyle in the Super Bowl. Including many of those who remember the young boy on Florida's practice fields three decades ago.
"It just all fit,'' McGriff said. "There's a bunch of us who have stayed close. We were all young and similar in age, raising our families and personalities that fit."
