Miami Dolphins Coach Mike McDaniel Shared a Rare Glimpse at His Personal Life & His Toddler's Sassy Shenanigans
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Mike McDaniel has become somewhat of a meme. In the best way. The head coach for the Miami Dolphins has the best comments when he’s mic’d up on the sidelines, he coaches like he’s running the family business until his dad gets back to town (per the internet), and he has an infamous post-game run that a toddler nailed when he dressed up as McDaniel for Halloween.
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Well, it turns out he’s not the only McDaniel family member who knows how to [adorably] steal the show. In a recent episode of Hard Knocks, McDaniel’s wife Katie and their 3-year-old daughter Ayla visit him at the Dolphins’ facility. He gets candid about [his attempts at] creating a work-life balance.
“I miss her a lot, but my wife Katie is a Jedi master at investing in what it takes for me to operate,” he said, running around the field with Ayla. “So you kind of have a dichotomy of lives that is 100 percent fulfilling, but it’s a balance that I’m only able to pull off because of my wife and daughter.”
A daughter who quickly became the sole focus of the clip. While getting a piggyback ride from her dad and heading toward his office, she turned around and sassily demanded that the cameras stay right where they were so they’d be there when she returned.
The Hard Knocks team did their best to caption Ayla’s demands, and their clear struggle is one of the best parts of the video.
“We’ll be back, okay! ?????????? And, ????? And you’ll stay here, right?” the toddler said amid indecipherable gibberish.
“??????????”
“And I’ll go see my daddy ?????????”
At that point, McDaniel and Katie can’t help but laugh at her adorably incoherent babbling that continues before she finally says “Just stay here!”
“Don’t go anywhere ’til I come,” she told the camera crew.
And yes, that was followed by many more question marks. The gist? Ayla McDaniel relishes in the spotlight.
“She speakin facts fr!” one person commented when the NFL shared the clip on Instagram. “(I don’t understand baby speak at all)”
“Fun fact. Most of these kids speak ‘minion’ 😂😂,” another said.
“The absolute best family in the NFL,” another follower wrote.
McDaniel and Katie have a somewhat unbelievable meet cute. In 2010, the two were at a nightclub, and the young coach saw one of his running backs dancing with her.
“Mike says, ‘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,” sports commentator Al Michaels said. “Four years later, they’re married. Katie, that’s how he met her.”
Six years later, in June 2020, they welcomed little Ayla. And just three years after that, she made a Hard Knocks debut that we’re still laughing about. Now all we need to know is how to ensure she’s mic’d up on the sidelines this Sunday.
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