Ever stood beneath high-voltage power lines and listened to the buzz? That same energy radiates from Broncos coach Mike Shanahan.
“I think we’re all year-by-year in the NFL,” Shanahan told me on the first glorious day of June. “If you live in the past, it’s really hard to enjoy the present. And, if you live in the past, you have no chance for the future.”
The sky was a soft, lazy blue on a spring afternoon in Colorado that invited you to grab a pitcher of lemonade and find a hammock. Yet Shanahan had been awake since before 5 a.m., working hard to keep his job.
There is a reason losing is never more than a temporary thing for the Broncos.
Unlike too many American sports franchises that are willing to pocket the hard-
earned money of fans for nothing more in return than a stream of empty promises, the Broncos understand and promote the idea that the enjoyment of football success is a birthright for every man, woman and child in Colorado.
Shanahan preaches intensity, not patience.
Shanahan demands excellence and refuses to hear cheap excuses.
“If you don’t win, you’re going to be criticized,” said Shanahan, who earlier this year agreed to a contract extension with the Broncos through 2011. “We all understand that a five-year contract might be financial security. But it’s not job security.”
Although there might not be a coach
in any U.S. pro sport more safely entrenched than Shanahan, he works as if his blue-and-orange coaching attire is on loan and there’s a trap door under his office chair at team headquarters.
Since the last time a pro football game was played in Denver, Shanahan has pink-
slipped his defensive coordinator, the starting quarterback for the team’s most recent playoff victory and a beloved captain who was the defense’s backbone.
Maybe it’s easier to give the team an extreme makeover when the ink is wet on the coach’s new contract. Or maybe that has absolutely nothing to do with how Shanahan approaches the job.
“Whether I was in the last year of my contract or I had five years remaining, I would do the same thing. I’ve got to do what I think gives us the best chance to win. You’ve got to look at coaches. You’ve got to look at players. It’s an on-going process,” said Shanahan, who won the Super Bowl for the Broncos in back-to-back seasons during the late 1990s.
“Heck, I’m in this game to win. To be honest with you, I think I’m more motivated now than I have been. Because we haven’t done it for a while.”
A gambler by nature, Shanahan is not afraid to make a mistake. The failures can be as big as believing hippy-dippy quarterback Jake Plummer would grow up. And his gambles can be as arrogant as circumventing the judicial system by allowing a Denver player accused of a crime to prove his innocence with a private lie-detector test.
In the past, I’ve harassed Shanahan by counting the days between his playoff wins. He has stood within spittle range of my nose and informed me how little an ink-stained wretch understands about anything. I could not work for a boss so my-
way-or-the-highway as Shanahan, which is probably OK, considering it would be cheaper and less aggravating for him to buy a barky, heel-nipping dog than hire me.
But watch the coach go about his business for more than a decade and you have to admire Shanahan’s relentless energy, whether it’s applied to finding the Broncos a new tailback or analyzing some way to finally bump off Indianapolis.
Shanahan understands what losers never grasp, although some long-suffering teams that you and I both know might be advised to start taking notes.
Shanahan realizes championships don’t come cheaply, whether it’s an investment of time or money.
Mediocrity won’t be tolerated, even for one year.
And the determination to win can awake a winner before 5 a.m., because genuine success never sleeps.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
