The teenager tagged along to practice, became a ball boy and said yes to any dinner, ice cream or equipment those famous NFL players offered. This marked Kyle Shanahan’s introduction to his future.
This life, glorious as it was, didn’t exist solely in the realm of rainbows, passing yards and Lombardi Trophies. Kyle grew up a coach’s son, watching his father, Mike, lose Super Bowls, get fired and, finally, in 1992, land in football nirvana with the San Francisco 49ers, winner of four championships in the previous 11 seasons.
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The Niners returned to the game that was their birthright after the 1994 season. That Christmas, Kyle unwrapped a Deion Sanders jersey. He wore the white No. 21 that day and every day after until Super Bowl XXIX on Jan. 29. His father recalls Kyle only removing his new uniform to shower and, sometimes, to sleep—. Mike tried to talk Kyle out of his superstition: “You’re going to get a bad rap,” he said. “You’re going to stink if you keep wearing that thing.” (Kyle insists he changed undershirts daily, mitigating any stench.) But what matters is they won that day, the Shanahans, father and son.
What matters now, in 2024, is how that season pointed Kyle toward his calling—how after the Big Game he began diagramming plays at the breakfast table, breaking down every route run by 49ers wideouts Jerry Rice and John Taylor.
And yet that calling remains, with one thing missing from Kyle’s résumé after his 49ers lost Super Bowl LVIII, 25–22, to the Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas.
