There Are Way Too Many Guys Named Mike in Denver. Let's Rank Them.

If you’re a man in Denver named Mike….congrats. You have a lot of company.

Denver is overflowing with an abundance of Mikes and Michaels these days. From our last two mayors, a senator and some of our top athletes and media personalities, Denver has been Mike'd up for years now.

Some of our top Mikes were traded or fired by Denver’s sports teams, but the departures of Michael Malone, Michael Porter Jr. and Mikko Rantanen at the top of the mind for many of the city’s sports fans (especially anyone who watched the Avalanche get bounced by Rantanen and the Dallas Stars in game seven in May...ouch.)

According to the Social Security Administration, Michael has been the top name in the country 44 times over the last hundred years, more than any other name. From 1961 to 1998 Michael was the top name for boys in the nation, and the name stayed in the top three through 2010. So, yeah, there are a lot of Mikes — and we have some of them.

We’ve collected a list of all the Denver-related Mikes and Michaels we could think of, loosely rating them within five categories and including some as honorable mentions.

Let's rank some Mikes.

Political Mikes

Mike is a popular name for Denver politicians, especially mayors. For the last fourteen years, a man named Mike has been the mayor of Denver. Add Michael Bennet’s sixteen years as a United States senator and Mike Coffman’s ten years as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and six years as mayor of neighboring Aurora and, well, that is a lot of years of Mike clout floating around the Denver area.

Michael Dougherty
Michael Dougherty has served as Boulder’s District Attorney since 2018. In that time he has weathered major crises, prosecuting the King Soopers mass shooter and investigating the cause of the Marshall fire. Dougherty is currently running to be Colorado’s next Attorney General after current AG Phil Weiser has thrown his hat in the ring to be the state’s next governor.

Mike Johnston
Denver’s current mayor Mike Johnston has made big moves in his term, which began around two years ago. He’s employed resources to decrease street homelessness, played a role in bringing Altitude TV back to Comcast customers, testified in front of Congress over his response to the migrant crisis and created an initiative to pay youth a bonus for working over the summer. On that youth work initiative, he paired up with Porter, a fellow Mike, for promotional purposes. Johnston is also known for his very Denver fashion choices, separating himself from his fellow Mikes who also wear khakis and blue button downs with a signature Denver city flag belt buckle. But Johnston's homeless reduction strategy isn't beloved by all. He also failed to get an affordable housing ballot measure passed by voters, with many sharing they felt that the idea would just give money to developers. Now, he's pushing for a bond package that looks eerily similar.
Michael Bennet:
Michael Bennet has served as a United States Senator since 2009, when he was appointed to a vacant seat. Since then, he’s been re-elected three times, most recently in 2022. Though his term won’t end until 2028, Bennet has announced he will run for Governor in the 2026 Colorado election. Bennet helped create the Child Tax Credit and pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which have helped many people and businesses in Colorado. Bennet is an advocate for public lands and worked Superintendent of Denver Public Schools before becoming a senator. But, despite being Colorado's longest-serving U.S. Senator this century, not many people have a fun or cool Bennet story to tell. He is pretty boring and has often faced criticism for being an ineffective legislator who doesn't introduce many effective bills. He's speaking out against Trump's actions more as of late, but that could have more to do with his gubernatorial run.

Mike Coffman
As Mayor of Aurora since 2019, Mike Coffman has stirred up controversy with policies that are more conservative than nearby Denver’s. Before that, he served as a U.S. Representative, winning reelection in 2012 despite birtherism comments about Barack Obama, for which he later apologized. Coffman kicked off 2025 by accusing Johnston of creating an “embarrassing” Venezuelan gang crisis in Aurora through Johnston's migrant-related policies in Denver, though Coffman had also argued the situation wasn’t as bad as national media made it seem. Coffman has always opposed Denver’s efforts to help both migrants and those living on the streets, famously living for a week on the streets of Denver and Aurora in a political stunt where he called himself “Homeless Mike” in 2021.

Michael Hancock
Michael Hancock was Denver’s mayor from 2011 until 2023, serving three consecutive terms despite a sexual harassment scandal involving inappropriate texts to a Denver police officer in the middle. Hancock isn’t known for many policy priorities. His brief biography on the city of Denver website lists securing international routes at the Denver International Airport as his accomplishment, which is pretty funny considering what he is known for is taking a flight over Thanksgiving in 2020 after warning constituents to stay at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, Hancock owns a consulting firm helping people who contract with the city government. Pretty classic.

Sporty Mikes

Mike Shanahan
As head coach of the Denver Broncos from 1995 to 2008, Mike Shanahan brought Denver its first Super Bowl victory in 1998, added one more to the mantle in 1999, and still holds the record as the winningest coach in Broncos history. Although the team fired Shanahan at the end of the 2008 season after the Broncos missed the playoffs three years in a row, he is also responsible for bringing the franchise some of its most glowing moments. The team has made the playoffs six times and won a Super Bowl in the sixteen seasons since Shanahan’s tenure, which included seven playoff trips during his eleven seasons at the helm.

Mike Pritchard
When the University of Colorado won the school’s sole college football national championship in 1990, Mike Pritchard was the MVP. The wide receiver was inducted into the University of Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015 for his contributions. After college, Pritchard played in the NFL, including two seasons for the Denver Broncos in 1994 and 1995, when he overlapped with a fellow Mike in Coach Shanahan and caught three touchdowns from John Elway.

Mike McDaniel
The current Miami Dolphins head coach grew up in Aurora as a childhood friend of Kyle Shanahan and comedian Dan Soder, graduating from Smoky Hill High School in 2001. At just 22-years-old, Mike McDaniel became a coaching intern for the Broncos in 2005 when Mike Shanahan hired him. McDaniel went on to be an NFL assistant for many years, including under Kyle in San Francisco, before being hired by the Dolphins as head coach in 2022. McDaniel became a popular persona after a strong start in Miami and HBO's Hard Knocks followed the Dolphins through the 2023 football season, but he's now on the hot seat after a rough go in 2024. Even so, he's beloved in Denver, where people have rocked McDaniel costumes for Halloween as an homage to a Mike they want everyone to remember came from here.

Mike Anderson
Another legendary football Mike is Mike Anderson, who won the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award in 2000 after the Broncos drafted him in the sixth round. Anderson racked up 251 yards in a single game in December 2000 against the New Orleans Saints, which is still a team record. During that game he scored four touchdowns and notched the longest touchdown run for a Broncos rookie. Though injuries slowed Anderson’s career, he’s still a legendary Denver Mike. Before playing football, Anderson served in the United States Marine Corps.

Mike Evans
Sharpshooting Mike Evans played for the Denver Nuggets from 1982 to 1988. During his time on the team, the Nuggets made the playoffs every season. Though Alex English is the biggest name from that time period, Evans was important, too, often stepping up when stars were having down nights. He was loved by the team, which hired him as a coach almost immediately after he retired. And as common as Mike Evans' name may be, his middle name, Leeroyall, is anything but.

Mike McGlinchey
For the last two seasons, Mike McGlinchey has provided stability on the offensive line for the Denver Broncos. The thirty-year-old offensive tackle previously played in San Francisco (for the child of a Denver Mike) before signing a five-year, $87.5 million contract with the Broncos in 2023. According to Pro Football Focus, the Broncos had the second-best offensive line in the league in 2024, which undoubtedly helped rookie quarterback Bo Nix find success in his first season. The Broncos O-Line is expected to perform well again in 2025. if the Broncos want to make a deep playoff push, Mike McG will be key.

Michael Toglia
Few people exemplify the unfortunate nature of the Colorado Rockies as of late like Michael Toglia. The first baseman was drafted by the team in 2016, so he went to college instead, only to be drafted by the Rockies again in 2019. For the last four seasons, Toglia has bounced between the majors and the team’s Triple A Minor League team in Albuquerque (where he probably belongs). The 26-year-old has a career batting average of .206 with a .208 batting average so far this season. Yikes.

Mike Hampton
This baseball Mike was decent at the plate during his two-year tenure with the team, winning two Silver Slugger awards for being the best at batting among National League pitchers in 2001 and 2002. But Mike Hampton’s pitching — you know, what he was paid to do — didn’t really hold up, with an earned run average of 5.78 over his two years in Denver. Before that disappointment, Hampton's eight-year, $121 million contract was the Rockies' biggest free agency signing in history. (At the time, it was the biggest contract in baseball history, too.) Hampton bizarrely said he picked the Rockies because of the Colorado school system, which probably has some fine teachers...but so will any school system when you make $15 million a year.

Mike MacIntyre
The CU football coach from 2013 to 2018 is at the bottom of our ranking of the sporty Mikes for good reason: Mike MacIntyre mishandled an instance of sexual assault on his coaching staff when Pamela Fine told MacIntyre she had been abused by assistant coach Joe Tumpkin in 2016; MacIntyre didn’t act until the media got involved in 2017. Yet the school still gave him a contract extension, including a $100,000 bonus, which equaled the amount MacIntyre was ordered to donate to a domestic-violence fund after former U.S. senator Ken Salazar determined he had erred in his handling of the Tumpkin situation. Just two seasons later, MacIntyre was fired because the football program had withered.

Mikes Who Were Traded or Fired — But Not Forgotten

Michael Malone
Before the Denver Nuggets fired Michael "Don't call me Mike" Malone earlier this year, he had become a legend for leading the team to its first NBA Championship in 2023. We’ll always remember Malone’s t-shirt during the championship parade depicting the Larry O'Brien championship trophy underneath the words, "Put this in your pipe and smoke it." "Nuggets Nation, I love you," Malone said that day. And, until the team failed to repeat and seemed lost, Nuggets Nation loved him back. Malone’s termination, days before the end of the regular season, resulted from a feud with general manager Calvin Booth, who was also let go. Although the end was bitter, most Denver basketball fans will hold onto sweet memories of the former coach and root for him wherever he lands.

Michael Porter Jr.
Michael Porter Jr. was always a controversial Nugget, with inconsistent play frustrating fans. His off-court eccentricities and uninformed beliefs displayed on his Curious Mike podcast turned some people off, as well. But when Porter and a future first-round pick were traded to the Brooklyn Nets for Cam Johnson earlier this month, most fans poured love out to Porter, wishing him well. In a video posted July 9, he sent that love back in a quintessentially Porter video where he sported a hat with the entirety of the Serenity Prayer printed on the front. He said he was on a plane to Saint-Tropez when he got the news, which surprised him as he’d just talked to a Nuggets front office member about their plans for the future. But Porter said he has no hard feelings, only regretting that his departure took place after he was limited in the playoffs due to what looked like a very painful shoulder injury. He ended the video by saying, “Curious Mike, out.” Hey, Curious Mike: we’ll miss you.

Mikko Rantanen
Like Porter, Mikko (which means Mike in Finnish) Rantanen was traded by his Denver sports team, the Colorado Avalanche, largely for financial reasons. The Avs sent Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes after the two sides failed to reach a contract extension and rumors swirled that there was bad blood between Rantanen and the front office as a result. Most Avs fans were heartbroken to see Rantanen, an integral part to the Avs championship team in 2022 and confirmed dude who likes to party, be forced out. The Hurricanes then sent Rantanen to the Dallas Stars just weeks later, and he made Colorado pay. Rantanen ended up scoring three goals for the Stars in the playoff game that would end the Avs season this year. Bad blood or not, it’s clear the Avs let a spectacular athlete go.

Mike Redmond
Since 2016, Mike Redmond served as the Rockies bench coach under manager Bud Black. But after the team’s worst start in franchise history, both were fired this May. Whatever’s going on with the Rockies, it isn’t Redmond’s fault as evidenced by their continued suckage since his departure. But the Monfort family apparently decided enough was enough. Members of the team expressed admiration and gratitude for Redmond after the firing. Hang in there, Mike.

Mikes With Mics

Mike Nelson
When Mike Nelson retired last December after a long career as a Denver meteorologist that began in 1991, pretty much everyone was sad to see him go. Nelson greeted Denver residents each morning, first at 9NEWS and then at Denver 7, with forecasts he tried his hardest to make accurate and good cheer that made him beloved across the city, especially for elementary school children whom he said he always received feedback from. Mornings just aren’t the same without Nelson’s steady presence but we hope he’s enjoying some well-deserved rest.

Mike Landess
The former Colorado TV anchor worked in the news business from the 1970s until retiring in 2018. At the time, Mike Landess said he was ready to eat dinner every night with his wife instead of at his desk, which makes him a clear leader for Denver's cutest Mike. Landess worked at 9NEWS and Channel 7 before ending his run in Colorado with Channel 2 in northern Colorado.

Mike Klis
Colorado sports media wouldn’t be the same without Mike Klis, who currently serves as a Broncos Insider for 9NEWS. Klis has worked in Colorado sports reporting since the 1980s, getting his first full-time sports writing job at the Colorado Springs Gazette in 1987. Klis made the jump to Denver in 1998, when the Denver Post hired him to cover the Rockies (his wife still works as a suite attendant at Coors Field, according to his 9NEWS bio.) By 2005, Klis was covering the Broncos for the Denver Post, leaving to join 9NEWS in 2015. Klis always has a question to ask, and his distinct presence makes him an icon on the Broncos beat.

Mike Evans
The second Mike Evans on this list is a longtime radio host at KKFN 104.3 The Fan. Evans has hosted several timeslots at the radio station over the last three decades, often playing the “straight man” role to bombastic personalities or former athletes, including Sandy Clough, Scott Hastings and Mark Schlereth. He currently hosts the morning drivetime show from 6 to 10 a.m. with former Broncos receiver Brandon Stokely and Schlereth, who joins in for the last two hours of the show.

Mike Singer
Longtime Denver Nuggets beat writer Mike Singer published a book about Nuggets star Nikola Jokic last year before taking a role with the team. Though Singer is pretty mum about what exactly he does for the Nuggets, his book about Jokic was an open, candid look at the brilliant big man’s journey, complete with hilarious stories from Jokic’s journey to the NBA.

Mike Henrys

There are three Mike Henrys who are well-known in Denver, so we had to give them their own category. Denver radio wouldn’t be the same without one Mike Henry, the founder and CEO of Paragon Media Strategies. This Mike Henry has consulted with Indie 102.3, The Drop and The Colorado Sound as well as helping launch hip-hop and R&B purveyor KS 107.5, oldies station KOOL 105 and KKFN 104.3.

Another Mike Henry helped Denver’s government remain ethical, leading the city’s ethics board for nineteen years before retiring in 2019. Henry even requested his own department be audited on his way out to ensure the watchdogs also had someone to answer to. Finally, another Mike Henry co-founded the Lighthouse Writers Workshop, a literary nonprofit in Denver that works to support and educate writers and readers across Colorado. Moral of the story: Mike Henrys get things done.

Honorable Mention Mikes

There are so many amazing Mikes in and around Denver that we couldn’t rank and sort every single one of them. But we couldn’t not recognize them, either, so here are our honorable mentions (and one dishonorable one) in alphabetical order.

Michael J. Anderson, a retired actor from Denver known for his roles in Twin Peaks and other David Lynch projects.

Michael Bandy, a Denver Broncos receiver who has spent a lot of time on the practice squad.

Michael Burton, a Denver Broncos fullback for the last two seasons, will also be on the team in 2025.

Michael Doleac, a longtime NBA player (and muse of the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz), who spent part of one season with the Denver Nuggets.

Michael Edwards, a defender for the Colorado Rapids who is currently on loan to the Charleston Battery in the USL Championship.

Mike Haynes, who used to call games for the Colorado Avalanche.

Mike Landis, Colorado's Assistant Attorney General.

Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow (and a longtime member of the mustache Mike club). We honestly don’t want to claim this MIke, who recently underwent a defamation trial in Denver.

Mike Sanford, a former interim head coach at the Univerisity of Colorado who now leads the Valor Christian High School football program.

Michael Singer, (yes, there is another Mike Singer), who installed interior garden artwork at the Denver International Airport

Mike Zimmer, a former NFL head coach who is likely to join the University of Colorado coaching staff under Deion Sanders.

We know we might have missed a few Denver Mikes. If so, let us know at [email protected].