Broncos’ Gary Kubiak: Faith at the Center of a Super Bowl Life
- Guest Contributor
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Former Super Bowl-winning Broncos coach reflects on football, family and keeping God first.
By Jay Sorgi
He has stood exactly where the Denver Broncos want to stand on February 8, raising the Vince Lombardi Trophy on a stage at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. It was 10 years ago, while wearing his beloved navy and orange with the great Peyton Manning by his side.
But Gary Kubiak knows that you can’t stand at the pinnacle unless the center of your being is in the right place, with God and with the people who matter most to you.
Kubiak, 64, learned the value of waking up early to be in the right place from the same domestic church that instilled his faith, a family deeply infused into his Polish neighborhood in Houston.
“My parents put me in a Catholic grade school, Christ the King,” the former altar boy said. “Every weekend with my dad, if I had to serve the 5:30 a.m. Mass, my dad woke me up at 4:45 in the morning to go. That was part of my life.”
His Catholic educational pathway led him to St. Pius X High School in Houston, but football took him to Texas A&M University, where he quarterbacked the Aggies from 1979 to 1982.
Yet it was at Texas A&M, close to the ranch where he now lives, where he journeyed toward the understanding of what the center of his life had to be.
“I tried to walk away from Texas A&M my sophomore year. I got so discouraged that I was ready to say, ‘The heck with this.’ It took me probably to my lowest point, where I realized that I kind of drifted as a person toward everything being athletics for me. Until I got my priorities back in line, football wasn't going right for me,” he said. “When I hit rock bottom and got my priorities back in line, football took off for me again. For me to be the best person I thought I could be in my career, I had to have everything else in line, priority-wise. If that ever got out of whack, then I wasn't going to succeed.”
Kubiak succeeded well enough for the Denver Broncos to draft him in the eighth round of the 1983 NFL Draft, the same draft from which, through a trade, the Broncos got the quarterback who would spend his career ahead of Kubiak on the depth chart, John Elway.
“I was battling every year. Was I going to make it? My wife and I hung on that every summer when I went to training camp. ‘Am I going to make a team this year? Am I going to make my living? Or is it going to be time to go home and do something else?’” he said. “My strength and my faith kept me sane, kept me on even keel as I went and chased that dream every summer to be a part of the Denver Broncos. If I didn't have things under control personally with my family, my marriage and my faith, then I had a hard time going out there every day and trying to be the best I could be.”
A nine-year career as a backup eventually led to a coaching career that began at his alma mater, Texas A&M. From there, he saw God leading him on a detour west to San Francisco and a job with the 49ers.
One night, he looked at himself in a mirror.
“My wife and my kids are back in Texas. Why did I make this decision?” he said.
But God had a message for him.
“It was like within days or whatever, ‘Hey, I got you. Just get your butt up and go to work tomorrow. I've got a purpose here,’” Kubiak said. “And I felt that purpose.“
Following that purpose, he won a Super Bowl ring with the 1994 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX, as he mentored Steve Young.
God brought him back to Denver as an assistant from 1995 to 2005, which included Super Bowl victories under Head Coach Mike Shanahan during the 1997 and 1998 seasons.
During that time span, the Jesuits, including those at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, helped his sons, Klay, now the offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, and Klint, who now holds the same position with the Seattle Seahawks. Those teams will battle this weekend in the NFL playoffs divisional round.
Perhaps Kubiak was inspired by the Ignatian calling to “find God in all things” as he worked to build a team culture that respected different faiths. By engaging with people from various backgrounds, the quietly devout Catholic learned valuable insights about God and life — insights he could take to his own prayer, including his participation in a weekly Mass for Catholics on the team.
“I was around all types of men, all types of people, whether it was playing or coaching. I found great value in learning about each and every one of them,” Kubiak said. “I had my way that I did things, but there's a lot of others that taught me so much as well by watching them handle themselves and their situation. I tried to stay focused on how I was the best version of myself and learn from others along the way.”
That growth into the best version of himself, as a coach, led to his hiring as the head coach before the 2015 season, a magical one, which ultimately led to the ultimate prize in his sport, the Vince Lombardi Trophy, after their 24-10 win over the Carolina Panthers in February 2016. It would be the 21st of 22 years in the Mile High City, one that brought him incredible blessings.
“It's very, very difficult to stay in one place for a long time. It's part of the business, part of the career,” he said. “It's amazing to me, for a guy who was in the coaching business, that the good Lord put me and my family in Denver for all those years.”
