No Mention of Mike Shanahan in Sharpe’s HOF Speech

We learned a lot more about Shannon Sharpe after last weekend. The Hall of Fame tight end gave credit to former teammates, teachers, and to his family. One person who Sharpe didn’t mention in his speech was his former coach Mike Shanahan. What gives? Sharpe went on 104.3 The Fan in Denver and the crew asked about why he didn’t mention Shanahan.

"You didn’t mention Mike Shanahan in your Hall of Fame speech. Was Mike Shanahan advancing you or holding you back?“I was already up there 26 minutes. You know what I am saying? Next thing you know it’s 40 minutes. Look I have a great relationship with Mike [Shanahan]. Did it start out like that? No. Because he perceived me a certain way. He let the persona overshadow the person. That bothered me, but as I got older as he got an opportunity to see…I think it took me leaving and going to Baltimore for Mike to finally have an appreciation of what I did and how hard I worked. When I came back and to this day Mike Shanahan and I have a great relationship. Look I didn’t mention my college coach. I forgot. I forgot my agent. Look the two people I knew who were going to be in there were my brother and my grandmother. I knew that 100%. So if I could say anything I like to thank my brother. I would like to thank my grandmother and sit back down. That would have been it, but look I don’t want people to think and I knew that was going to happen. I was talking to my girlfriend as I was driving. We were driving back home I was like there are some people that I forgot and I automatically said the fact that I didn’t mention Mike [Shanahan] people are going to think well Shannon Sharpe doesn’t like Mike. I won two Super Bowls under Mike. I became a much better tight end. I became a much more disciplined tight end. I paid more attention to detail under Mike, so don’t think because I didn’t mention his name…like I said I would have loved to have gone verbatim and mention all my offensive coordinators. I didn’t mention Gary Kubiak, but I texted Mike. I texted Gary. I texted Brian Pariani. I think that pieced with the way my speech went. I think pieced with the relationship I have with those guys, so I’ll let the naysayers and all the people that want to speculate on what my relationship is with the people I didn’t mention and that’s fine, but I know where I stand and they know where they stand.” – Shannon Sharpe (Sports Radio Interviews)"

To listen to the interview, go here.