NFL FAMILY AFFAIR
NFL — and Super Bowl — a fatherson business for Chiefs, Niners
San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan grew up living the life of a football coach’s son. He liked it so much, he decided he wanted to be just like his dad.
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt grew up living the life of a football magnate’s son. All signs pointed toward the likelihood that he’d become the magnate, himself, someday.
A child following in his parents’ footsteps is a delicate balancing act, even when the whole world isn’t watching. When it plays out in public, the way it does in the
NFL, everyone gets to see the successes and failures unveiled in real time.
From the owner of the local car wash or bakery to the coach of one Super Bowl team and the owner of another, questions abound about the propriety of kids following their parents into business, regardless of the number of zeroes on the bottom line.
“The child has to ask, ‘Is this a feeling of obligation, which creates a noose around your neck, or is this a real passion of yours?’” says Jean Meeks-Koch of The Family Business Consulting Group. “And the parent has to ask ‘Am I pushing my beliefs
onto them and providing them experiences that create my belief system, or am I opening their world to a lot of experiences, and they happen to fall in love with my passion, too?’”
Shanahan, in search of his first Super Bowl title, learned a lot of what he knows from his dad, Mike, who has three Super Bowl rings of his own back at home. Hunt, owner and chairman of the Chiefs, inherited the team along with
his siblings when his trailblazing father, Lamar, died in 2006.
Talk about pressure. The parents have to think of preserving their reputations, to say nothing of the millions or billions of dollars they might have piled into their company, as they embark on the task of figuring out whether their kid has the same acuity for the work as they do. The kids, meanwhile, must navigate the need to protect the family legacy while also fending off jealousy from those who sense they didn’t earn their way to the top.
Potential pitfalls? They’re everywhere.
“In one word, the challenge is ‘credibility,’” said Dana Telford, who also works at The Family Business Consulting Group. “If
you think about it, credibility isn’t really something you earn, per se. You can try to show credibility through your achievement. But really, it has to be granted.”