Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel explains the viral story behind how he met his wife
During Amazon Prime’s broadcast of the Dolphins’ win against the New York Jets on Black Friday, play-by-play man Al Michaels recounted a story coach Mike McDaniel told him in a pre-production meeting about his time as running backs coach for the Sacramento Mountain Lions. in the United Football League
McDaniel, Michaels says, tells a story about how he met his wife at a nightclub. One of the team’s running backs was dancing with McDaniel’s now-wife, Katie, after a win. McDaniel, according to Michaels, said: “Listen you’re not dancing with her anymore, or you’re not playing with this team next year. So then McDaniel starts dancing with her. That’s the beginning of the story. Four years later, they’re married.”
The story took off on social media, with many people making light of it — while some claimed it was an abuse of power.
On Monday, McDaniel was asked about the story and provided some context.
“I would say the skeleton of the story is correct. But there’s a couple important caveats,” he said. “First of all, the perceived threat I made to a player was over the top a joke considering both he and I knew that as the running backs coach, I had no ability to say if he was there or not. It was more in jest. And then second of all, my wife was telling me people were talking about me stealing people’s girls. The dude had met her for 45 seconds.
McDaniel called it a “light-hearted, very unique scenario” that was blown out of proportion. But given how the relationship turned out, it’s not necessarily something he regrets.
“It was a special place in our memories,” he said, “but I don’t think it was — I feel like I was painted out to kind of be a d-bag, and it wasn’t like that at all. It was all nice. We were celebrating as a team and it was something that I think, Steve Baylark, the player that was dancing with her, was well aware when I made that joke in jest that it was more important to me than it was to him. And I’m pretty sure I was right. I have a family now. Good decision.”
