San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has found success on and off the football field since marrying Mandy Shanahan in 2005.
The couple first met and started dating in high school during the late ‘90s in Colorado while Kyle’s father Mike Shanahan was the head coach for the Denver Broncos. They briefly split up before reconnecting in college, where tragedy brought them closer together.
While in college, Mandy’s mother, Nancy O’Donnell, was diagnosed with Stage 4 gallbladder cancer, which she later died from in 2002. Once Kyle found out about Nancy’s diagnosis, he flew from his college in Texas to Colorado regularly to see Mandy, and he fell in love with her while watching how she dealt with her mother’s illness.
“There are very few times in life you get to see someone for who they genuinely are,” Kyle told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2017. “Mandy going through that — it was as bad as anything you could go through — it showed me who she was. There was no B.S. to her. I saw who she was. And that was the person I fell in love with.”
Kyle and Mandy have welcomed three children together in their nearly two decades of marriage: Their daughter Stella was born in 2007, followed by son Carter in 2008 and daughter Lexi in 2012.
The two split up after high school before reconnecting in college.
While reconnecting by communicating from afar in college, Mandy received devastating news that her mother had been diagnosed with Stage 4 gallbladder cancer. Mandy shared the news with Kyle, who immediately showed his support by writing letters to Mandy’s mother and even flying home to visit Mandy on weekends.“He completely stunned me,” Mandy told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2017. “Kyle, hands down, got me through that. After going through that with him, I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.”
“I never planned on getting married at a young age,” Kyle admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle. “But then I understood ‘Okay, you don’t necessarily get to pick when you get married. You get married when you find the right person.’ And I found her. So I changed my plans.”
In 2017, Kyle was an offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, who had just been defeated by Tom Brady and the New England Patriots during the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history. Following the Falcons’ defeat, Kyle was hired for his first head coaching job by the San Francisco 49ers — and some NFL analysts questioned if he would be successful in his new role.
Mandy supported him through this transition and did not doubt that he had what it took to be a successful head coach in the NFL. While Mandy likes to keep her personal life private, she doesn’t hesitate to support her husband vocally.
“You hear that he’s hard to reach, or he’s arrogant,” Mandy told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Kyle’s been one of the most sensitive people I’ve ever been around, in a good way. He’s so in tune with people’s emotions and how people feel. And that’s what makes him such a gifted father and supporting husband.
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