Mike Shanahan is an American football coach, currently the head coach of the Denver Broncos of the NFL. He has led the Broncos to two Super Bowl victories.

Shanahan was an undersized quarterback at Eastern Illinois University in the 1970s before a hard hit on the practice field ruptured one of his kidneys, nearly killing him. With his playing career abruptly ended, he went on to coach for Eastern Illinois as an assistant. He later served as an assistant coach at other universities, including Northern Arizona University, the University of Florida, the University of Minnesota and the University of Oklahoma, before making the jump to the NFL.

Shanahan served as a quarterbacks coach and later offensive coordinator for the Broncos under Dan Reeves in the 1980s and had a brief stint as the head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders in 1988-89, going 8-12 in less than two seasons before being fired and returning to the Broncos as an offensive assistant again under Reeves. Shanahan soon found himself in the middle of a growing feud between Reeves and quarterback John Elway, and he was fired by Reeves.

Shahanan was hired as offensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers on George Seifert's staff, capping his rise with a Super Bowl victory after the 1994 season. The 49ers offense that year has been hailed as one of the greatest of all time, with the likes of Steve Young, Jerry Rice, and Ricky Watters scoring points in flurries.

Shanahan's success with the 49ers earned him a head coaching spot once more, this time back in Denver with the Broncos beginning with the 1995 campaign. Shanahan led Elway and the Broncos to back-to-back Super Bowl championships after the 1997 and 1998 seasons. He was the last coach to win two consecutive titles until New England's Bill Belichick did it after the 2003 and 2004 NFL seasons.

He is known for a run-heavy variation on the West Coast Offense he coached in San Francisco. He has often found unheralded running backs from later rounds of the draft and then turned them into league-leading rushers behind small-but-powerful offensive lines. Examples of this phenomenon are Terrell Davis, Mike Anderson, Olandis Gary and Reuben Droughns, all of whom have had at least one 1,000-yard season in a Denver uniform over the past 10 years.

Of late, he faced criticism for not delivering a playoff victory since Elway's retirement and Davis' career-ending injuries. The playoff drought ended on January 14, 2006 when the Broncos defeated the two-time defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots in the AFC Divisional Playoffs at Invesco Field at Mile High.

With the assistance of writer Adam Schefter, Shanahan penned "Think Like a Champion," a motivational book about leadership, in 1999. It was published by Harper Collins.

Los Angeles Raiders coaches | Denver Broncos coaches | San Francisco 49ers coaches | Irish-Americans | American football quarterbacks | Eastern Illinois Panthers football players | Northern Arizona Lumberjacks football coaches | Florida Gators football coaches | Minnesota Golden Gophers football coaches | Eastern Illinois Panthers football coaches