The man who drew up the game-winning play in the College Football Playoff National Championship game for Indiana almost never went into football at all. Norwin’s Mike Shanahan grew up in a huge family where basketball was king.<\/p>\n
“It was my first love growing up,” Shanahan said. “My dad, my uncles Brian, Robert and Jerry all played college basketball. It was definitely a basketball family. I was one of the only ones to play football even in high school, so I kind of blazed my own path that way.”<\/p>\n
That path he blazed led him to a successful college career as a wide receiver at the University of Pittsburgh. After a few NFL tryouts didn’t pan out, he needed to figure out his life’s plan.<\/p>\n
“At that point, I was leaning a little bit more towards teaching high school, coaching football and basketball,” Shanahan said. “I wanted to be around the game. I just loved the camaraderie of it, the competitiveness of it.”<\/p>\n
He decided to give college coaching a try. His first official job came at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where then-unheralded head coach Curt Cignetti was building an empire.<\/p>\n
“I’d be lying to you if I said I thought he would ever leave IUP,” Shanahan said. “I did not go into that job expecting him to move. But regardless, I knew it was a great opportunity to go in there and have my own position room, learn from him as a great head coach and learn from a lot of other coaches there as well who have gone off to be very successful.”<\/p>\n
After stints at Elon University and James Madison University, Shanahan is entering his third year in Bloomington as Indiana’s offensive coordinator, which has him in a position to possibly take the next step into a head coaching role.<\/p>\n
“It is in the back of my mind, but I will say number one, I’m focused on what my job here is now. And I really enjoy working with coach Cignetti,” Shanahan said. “I enjoy the leadership part of it and the role that I’m in now, and I could see myself someday potentially being a head coach. But I’m just taking it day by day and enjoying being where my feet are.”<\/p>\n
While Shanahan is on track to possibly become a head coach in the future, he’s not doing too poorly at the moment. Just before Indiana’s championship run, the school signed him to a three-year extension in hopes of keeping him in Bloomington for as long as possible.<\/p>\n