Eleven-year-old Cayla Hohensee recognized the predicament right away.
Her father, Mike Hohensee, is the coach of the Chicago Rush, which will play the Colorado Crush for the American Conference championship of the Arena Football League at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Pepsi Center. The winner advances to the ArenaBowl on June 12 in Las Vegas.
A few days after her father’s team advanced with a 52-45 victory over Los Angeles, Cayla sensed the emotional conflict.
“She came in and said that she felt sad and guilty,” recalled Deborah Hohensee, Cayla’s mother. “She said she felt that way because she wanted to win, but not against Uncle Mike.”
Uncle Mike would be Crush coach Mike Dailey.
“Mike Dailey is the godfather for all of our children,” Hohensee said. “He was the best man at our wedding, twice – the first time, and later, when we renewed our vows.”
Dailey, 47, and his wife, Jodie, cherish their relationship with the Hohensee family.
“I haven’t met a finer human being than Mike Hohensee,” Dailey said. “I have been influenced by a lot of coaches, but if there was one I had to put to the top who really helped me learn the game of football, it would be Mike Hohensee.
“Without him, I’m not where I am today.”
The stakes Sunday will be nearly as high as they are personal.
Hohensee, 44, never has taken a team to the ArenaBowl. Dailey won the championship in 1999 when he coached Albany, but the Crush hasn’t advanced that far in its three seasons, the past two with Dailey in charge.
“Their friendship is much deeper than this football game,” Deborah Hohensee said. “It could be worse. They could be playing each other in the ArenaBowl.”
Deborah is staying in Chicago, but Jodie Dailey will travel from the family home in Maryland to be at the Pepsi Center.
“Although this is emotional for all of us, our desires in respect to the outcome of the game are the same,” Jodie said. “One of us will go to the championships and the other won’t. Obviously, both want to win. If we win, I hope I have the opportunity to give Mike Hohensee a big hug.”
The coaches met 20 years ago when they joined the coaching staff at Montgomery College- Rockville in Maryland.
“We recognized almost right away that we had a special association in coaching,” Dailey said. “We both started our coaching career at a junior college. We’ve worked our way up to now be facing each other in a conference championship game.”
Their paths crossed the next 20 years. Along the way, they have been on the same coaching staffs as assistants. Each has been the head coach while the other was on the staff as an assistant coach.
“He has a great understanding of being a great leader or a great soldier,” Dailey said of Hohensee. “He can do either, and I think I can do the same.”
“We have a great appreciation for how the other guy works,” Hohensee said. “I think we’d both like to work again on the same coaching staff someday. It doesn’t matter to either of us who gets the credit.”
Crush lineman Kyle Moore-Brown played for Albany in 1995 and 1996 when Hohensee was the head coach and Dailey was the line coach.
“They’re best friends, and they work well together,” Moore-Brown said. “They believed in me and brought me into the league. This will be difficult for both of them. It’s a chess match because they’re so similar.”
Hohensee and Dailey have met 14 times as opposing head coaches.
Each has won seven times, but Hohensee holds a 3-1 edge over the past two years in the Crush-Rush matchup.
Dailey expects the two will meet Sunday before the game.
“We rarely talk football when we’re together,” Dailey said. “We have a unique, sincere relationship, one that we both treasure.”
After the small talk, it will be all business.
“The loser will be happy that his friend is moving on,” Dailey said. “If we happen to win, he’ll be our biggest fan, and I’ll feel the same way if he wins.”
Staff writer Irv Moss can be reached at 303-820-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
