Why you’ll never get the Cherry Creek out of Kyle Shanahan
When a Cherry Creek High guy, a Bruin for life, says he’s rooting like sin for the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, you want to know why. And Zack Zucker, Class of ’98, offers up this story, from his senior year when he was in San Diego with one of his best friends, Kyle Shanahan, who was checking with him to see if he was joining the Broncos entourage headed over to Super Bowl XXXII.
“I said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to go to the game.’
“And Mike (Shanahan) grabs the phone out of Kyle’s hand. And this is the day of the Super Bowl. And he gets on the phone with me and says, ‘You get your (expletive) to my hotel, now.’
“He called his assistant that worked for the Broncos, and you could imagine how security is around the team hotels at the Super Bowl. He made sure I was found, got me inside the team hotel and took me into his room and got me a pass that said ‘Mike Shanahan’s assistant.’ I was on the field as Mike’s ‘assistant’ for the best Super Bowl ever.”
There are friends you follow on Facebook, and friends you’d walk through hell in a gasoline suit to hug. Kyle Shanahan is the latter.
“I call myself the biggest fair-weather fan in America,” Zucker laughs. “I have been a Denver Broncos fan. I have been a Washington Redskins fan. I have been a Cleveland Browns and an Atlanta Falcons fan. Now I’m a San
Francisco 49ers fan. I’ve got more gear in my closet than any NFL team ever. People are confused as to which team is mine.”
Of this, he’s certain: You can take Kyle Shanahan out of Bruins Country, but danged if you’ll take the Bruins Country out of Kyle Shanahan. For one thing, Zucker and Jeff Brunson, another of the younger Shanahan’s old high school football teammates and running buddies, make a point to fly out to a handful of Niners games a year, hearts on their sleeves. For another, there’s Kyle, walking the sideline as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers Sunday against the Denver Broncos, his hometown team, the team that he grew up with, the franchise he darn near coached, a testament to the scars that never leave you.
“I can still remember my sophomore year, coming in and making the varsity basketball team and truly believe I should have,” the younger Shanahan, who played receiver on Cherry Creek’s 5A state title team in 1996, tells the Post. ”And then every person who didn’t make the team, in the cafeteria, they’d say, ‘You only made it because of your last name.’
“I always fought that and got a big chip on my shoulder to prove them wrong. It gave me a lot more anger when I was younger, to prove them wrong.
“That’s why I wanted to play so bad. Then when I got into coaching, I just always had to prove myself. I’ve gotten over that. When I’ve gotten older, you start to realize it’s not personal, that’s just how (people) are and how they work. You’ve got to experience (that). And that’s what motivated me most of my life.”
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When a Cherry Creek guy, a Bruin for life, tells you he probably dodged a bullet by not getting the Broncos job two years ago, even though his parents are here, and his pals are here, and his soul — deep down — is here, you want to know how that can be.
“I think after the interview I made it a little bit harder on them,” the younger Shanahan says of the January 2017 interview he had with Denver after Gary Kubiak resigned. “I just didn’t think (the Broncos) would choose me.
“And I think it worked out for the better. Denver was my home. I’d much rather be in a situation where I could do my own thing and go a little different direction.
“I had mixed feelings on it. I never felt like I was a front-runner or anything. I don’t think we connected … very well in interviews. It’s different. I knew all those guys when I was younger: (president) Joe Ellis, (general manager) John Elway. I remember having Thanksgiving at John Elway’s house when I was 5 years old. So those guys have been a part of my life for a long time, so they know me, (but) at the same time, they don’t really know me as a man. I don’t think they knew what to expect.
“It was truly fun to sit down for five hours and talk. We all know each other well and hadn’t seen each other for 20 years. They all knew me as a high school kid, and it was different for them to see me as an adult.”
To some — even after Duke, even after Texas, even after a dozen years as an NFL assistant, even after being one of the best things ever to happen to quarterbacks Matt Schaub and Matt Ryan, even after nabbing the NFL assistant coach of the year award in 2016 — he’s always going to be the son of Mike, the man who brought two Lombardi Trophies home, and all that comes with it. The skinny kid running routes at insane hours at Broncos headquarters.
“It’s Sunday, and I’d get a call from him first thing in the morning,” chuckles Brunson, the son of former Broncos kick returner/ wideout Larry Brunson and a former University of Colorado defensive back. “He says: ‘Get up here. Now.’ It’s Sunday at 7 a.m. and he’s at the Broncos’ facility already getting a workout in.
“He’d be up there, literally, all day. I’m like, ‘My body can’t handle this.’ He pretty much would have that schedule every weekend. Catching balls from the JUGS machine, he was always doing something — we’d be at the Broncos facility all the time just doing drills and helping out and trying to get better, too.”
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When a Cherry Creek guy, a Bruin for life, tells you how much he misses weekends at the Shanahan house before Y2K, you want to know the wherefores.
“We were dorks, honestly,” laughs Ben Rebstock, Shanahan’s old running mate in the Cherry Creek receiving corps and a future Colorado State wideout. “We were not partyers early in our high school days.”
Just dudes doing dude things. Sleepovers at Shanny’s. Bottomless supply of Coca-colas. Towers of pizza boxes. Pick-up basketball half the night.
“(Kyle) didn’t take losing well, which is why he’s been successful as a football guy, because he works at it,” Rebstock says. “He always had a talent and an eye for the game from a macro level. He’s always been really good at evaluating a talent skill set. He would always tell me things he thought I did really well. I didn’t have coaches tell me that when we were that age. He always complimented me on my quickness and my burst and my hands. Kyle was one of the first guys to tell me I was good enough to play Division I football. That tells you a lot about how, as a kid, he could see it.”
Two steps and three chess moves ahead. Even then.
“I love going home to Denver,” Kyle says. “Anytime we get a chance, I love spending time in Colorado. I’ve got a lot of really good friends there.”
A lot of good memories, too, tucked into closets between the Niners gear and the gasoline suits.
“I think (the Broncos job) would have been really hard on him,” Rebstock says. “I think it would have been harder on (Kyle’s wife) Mandy than Kyle — Kyle can check himself into a film room, and most of us know not to even talk to him during the season. But being that Mandy is from here as well, I think, trying to get everyone appeased on game day, it would’ve been miserable.
“Yeah, in Fantasyland, it would’ve been awesome having one of your best friends in high school coaching your (favorite pro) team. But all coaches get fired. I think it would be very hard for his kids and his family to have to come home and be around here with their whole family here, and have to leave because there’s not a job here anymore.”
But there’s the chip. Now. Always.
“It’s an uphill battle,” Kyle says. “It’s great to have that last name. But if you don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t work hard, if you’re not good, you will get exposed. You’ll get run out of the business.”