Shanahan studying game film late at night

The final day of 2008, Wednesday December 31 was the explanation point on a year filled with head shaking events.

Mike Shanahan, the head coach of the Denver Broncos was fired. Yes, in a world filled with conflict, unsettled times and an assortment of life changing circumstances, football is pretty insignificant and a coach’s firing is not uncommon at the end of a season.

However, I took this event to heart. Coach Shanahan had been around the organization and in our community for 21 years. When he first came to Denver in 1984 it just so happens I was one of the first folks he met.

I was assigned to photograph the young wide receivers coach hired by then head coach Dan Reeves.

It was an amiable meeting. Though busy, as most coaches are,  Shanahan was extremely accommodating. If my memory serves me right, I sat him down next to a film projector. Behind him on a white board we displayed a couple of offensive diagrams-X’s and O’s, if you will. I had him look into the lens and the spotty, flickering light from the projector offered the ambiance and feeling of  a coach in his environment- studying film day and night as they always do.

Shanahan's knowledge of the rules has always garnered the respect of the officials

Since his return to Denver as the head football coach in 1995 we constructed a special relationship. Even though I was not a full-time  employee, he had a clear understanding of my roll as team photographer and gave me quite a bit of leeway. As most folks that know football, Mike Shanahan is a no nonsense kind of guy. If he saw you were doing your job he pretty well left you alone. In his  tenure he never refused to give me any opportunity to capture a photograph I felt reasonable for team coverage.

He taught many us around the organization over the years  that good planning, time management and perseverance leads to success. The other two things that were paramount in his leadership were team unity and family.

Though the reality of his dismissal is just sinking in, his legacy here is intact and his future promising.

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