The memorabilia from the travels of Annie and Zach Hanson can be found down in the basement of their Manhattan, Kan., home. They’ve filled the walls and shelves with the artifacts of their journey together, practically a miniature museum of their uncommon path.
There are the purple Kansas State jerseys that their wedding guests autographed. There are Jordan shoes and track cleats, game balls and team photos. There are plaques and rings, helmets and hats, magazines and media guides. And located left of their fireplace, there’s a small wooden sign.
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WE INTERRUPT THIS MARRIAGE TO BRING YOU FOOTBALL SEASON
For the Hansons, that line rings true in a way few can understand. Zach is the tight ends coach at Kansas State University. Annie is the executive director of recruiting for University of Oklahoma football. Though they share this home, the Hansons work and live 310 miles apart.
This long-distance relationship has long been the norm for most of their more than four years together. With the exception of a stint working together at the University of North Carolina, it’s always been this way — Annie and Zach toiling away as rising young staffers at their alma maters while keeping the faith that their professional paths will someday converge.
“This is very, very unique,” Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said. “I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. But it takes two special individuals, and that’s what they are.”
As a husband and wife duo working in the college football coaching ranks, they’re one of a kind. And because the arrangement is so uncommon, they recognize that a lot of people don’t get it. They’re working for programs that are Big 12 foes, competing against the same schools and even pursuing the same recruits. And to get this far, they’ve had to sacrifice.
But the Hansons choose not to see their present circumstances as a problem. The distance between them is just one unique aspect of their love story, a journey they’re proud of — and one that’s only just beginning.
“It’s different. But we think it’s a good different,” Annie said. “We’re getting to chase our dreams every day, doing what we love and finding a way to make it all work.”
They knew right away. Annie felt she’d met her soulmate after one date. She laughs and realizes that sounds crazy, but when you know, you know. Zach called his parents in Healdsburg, Calif., and told his mom he might’ve found “the one.” He brought her home to meet them after nearly a year of dating.
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“The minute I saw them together,” Sandy Hanson said, “I knew this was gonna be it.”
It all began with a blind date at an Eric Church concert in the summer of 2014. They’d run in practically the same circle of friends for years and never realized it until then.
Annie Martin was working in development for Oklahoma’s athletic department at the time. She grew up just outside Manhattan and went to Riley County High School. Zach had played offensive tackle for Kansas State from 2009-11. She was friends with a few of his teammates and even worked a summer internship at K-State in 2010. They’d almost certainly been in the same room before and didn’t know it. But timing is a theme woven throughout the story of their relationship.
Zach Hanson was Kansas State’s starting left tackle in 2011 before entering the coaching profession. (Peter G. Aiken / Getty Images)Annie’s parents had actually met Zach weeks before the first date, at a graduation party for the daughter of then-Kansas State offensive coordinator Dana Dimel. The 6-foot-8 former lineman was a graduate assistant for the Wildcats at the time. Annie’s mother Lori just felt drawn to him for some reason. Dimel, now the head coach at UTEP, says she started recruiting Zach right away.
“She’s like, ‘Ah, I know somebody you need to meet, young man!’ ” Dimel recalled with a laugh.
Their mutual friends finally set them up. The first date came at the Country Stampede music festival near Manhattan on June 28, 2014. And they’ve been inseparable ever since, even if their careers have consistently kept them apart.
Looking back, they can see the value in that distance. It forced Annie and Zach to build their bond on a stronger foundation of communication and trust. They were both working busy schedules from the very beginning. The two got to know each other early on by talking on the phone all night.
“Compromise and creativity and appreciation are all synced with our expectations for one another,” Annie said. “I think that’s very important, especially if you are doing this in a non-traditional way.”
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And they had to get creative from the start, trying their best to cram in weekend trips up to Manhattan or down to Norman and make the most of their limited time together. Sometimes they’d even meet in the middle and have a date night in Wichita.
“There’s been plenty of mornings where you wake up at 3 a.m. and drive five hours back to make it to work at 8,” Zach said.
They’ve each done that 310-mile drive so many times that Annie swears they can knock it out in four hours flat. They know all the shortcuts. They try to be productive during all that time spent on the road, checking in with coaches or calling recruits.
“Both of them are good, hard workers, and what they do is important to them, very much so,” Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said. “It’s an interesting dynamic, of course, but if anybody could do it, they can.”
That’s true, in part, because of how well they fit together and balance each other out. Annie is the hyper-enthusiastic and outgoing one, always on the move. Zach is calm and laid back, a gentle giant. They’ve each found their match in a partner who’s driven, competitive, compassionate and dedicated to working with student-athletes.
“And Annie and Zach both love — absolutely love — their alma maters,” said Zach’s father, Earl Hanson.
Finding those loves took some time, too. Their first choices weren’t the right fit. Annie began her track and cross country career at Georgia Tech before transferring to Oklahoma. Zach signed with Nevada out of high school but left for a junior college before his freshman season.
While Annie Martin was setting Oklahoma’s record in the steeplechase, she was eyeing a career in college athletics administration. (Oklahoma Athletics)Annie became the Sooners’ record holder in the steeplechase and a captain for their track team, but more important, the distance runner took full advantage of her opportunities. She landed internships at K-State, Nebraska and with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars while rising through the ranks working in development with the Sooner Club, the fundraising arm of OU athletics.
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Zach came to Kansas State from Sacramento City College and played in 37 games for the Wildcats, becoming their starting left tackle in 2011. After a back injury cost him a shot at pursuing the NFL, he joined Snyder’s staff just months after graduating, first as a quality control staffer and then as a grad assistant working with the offensive line.
They worked similar jobs and possessed identical aspirations, trying to prove themselves and climb the ladder in this profession. Lots of late nights, lots of tireless work. They’d found kindred spirits who kept encouraging each other to keep going.
“I remember specifically there being a time when I asked him, ‘Is this really all worth it?’ ” Annie said. “And his response was quick: Absolutely.”
The Hansons begin each day with a phone call and a morning devotional before going to work. They catch up at night via FaceTime or Skype. They might find a couple minutes to chat during lunch, but they’ll rarely text during the day. They dedicate everything else to their jobs.
That’s one way to explain their divergent paths: They fell in love with the work.
Annie knew she wanted to work in athletics all along. Former Oklahoma administrator Nicki Moore remembers the first time she struck up a conversation with Annie at a cross country meet, and the young runner asked if she could pick her brain.
“She was just so full of energy and enthusiasm that, of course, you can’t imagine saying anything but heck yes,” Moore said.
Moore mentored her for nearly four years at Oklahoma. Annie worked closely with her as an intern and then as a graduate assistant. In the summer of 2015, Moore left to become the senior associate AD at North Carolina. Soon after, Annie had a chance to join her there.
But it would require a pivot in her career path. The Tar Heels’ football program was looking to hire a new on-campus recruiting director. Though it was a low-level position on a football staff, Moore encouraged Annie to pursue it. Opportunities to prove your worth as a woman in football are hard to find, she said. This is a door that doesn’t often open.
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“Sheryl Sandberg talks in her book ‘Lean In’ about how, for women, it’s less a career ladder that you’re climbing than it is a jungle gym,” said Moore, who’s now the athletic director at Colgate. “Sometimes you have to go sideways and down and around and up to make it to where you want to go.”
So Annie took the job and moved to Chapel Hill. Coach Larry Fedora gave her the opportunity to transform North Carolina’s recruiting initiatives and daily practices, from planning to visits and events to its social media strategy and branding. And Zach was able to join her there after the 2015 season. He turned down a Division II coaching offer and agreed to take another graduate assistant role at UNC, coaching special teams.
North Carolina gave Zach and Annie a chance to work together, and they thrived. (Photo courtesy Annie Hanson)They loved their time together at North Carolina. Their offices were just 15 feet apart, but they rarely spent much time together during the day. They were just that busy. They did all they could, though, to keep each other afloat. There were times when Zach would help fold itinerary cards or Annie would work the stopwatch during film sessions.
“I will say, we are a pretty awesome package,” Annie said. “We’re a force when we’re together.”
Right before she left for UNC, and after 13 months of dating, Zach proposed. They planned a Manhattan wedding from afar with the help of their mothers. Their wedding on July 16, 2016, brought more than 350 friends and family together from North Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma, California and all over the country. At their reception, Snyder and Barry Switzer sat at the same table. Their wedding hashtag: #TeamHanson. The Tar Heels opened preseason camp a week later, so they went right back to work and still haven’t taken a honeymoon trip.
They made up their minds that they would settle down and hope to stay at UNC for a long time. Annie was promoted to an assistant AD role for recruiting operations and external affairs last summer, giving her a chance to impact the recruiting operations of not just football but all 28 UNC teams while also assisting in fundraising.
But then she received an unexpected call from Lincoln Riley.
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Riley had met her in his first months on the job at Oklahoma and admired her work at North Carolina. He’d just taken over as head coach and he made her an offer to come home and help him upgrade the Sooners’ recruiting efforts. She’d been approached by a few schools before and declined. When Riley called, she said, the tone was just different. The Hansons did their research and deliberated over all the pros and cons.
And they agreed: This was the right move. Even if it meant living 1,000 miles apart.
“You have to know whatever is best for your family and what’s deep down in your heart and your soul,” Annie said. “And that was Oklahoma at the time.”
Annie’s first day of work at Oklahoma was five days before the 2017 season opener.
She showed up for the Sooners’ Monday staff meeting ready to roll, with an itinerary and outline for her first official visit weekend already prepared. Both of the recruits she hosted that weekend — offensive lineman Brey Walker and linebacker Brian Asamoah — ended up signing with the Sooners.
She had a lot to learn and a lot to improve and did it all on the fly. Annie crashed with the Switzers during the season before finally getting an apartment on campus, just a minute from Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. During Oklahoma’s off week, she flew out to see Zach and North Carolina take on Georgia Tech, but the distance made it tough to squeeze any more visits into their in-season schedule. Staying so occupied with work actually helped.
“There was a lot of FaceTime, a lot of prayer,” Annie said. “But we were busy. Football season is busy. Even when Zach and I lived together, the amount of time we saw each other was, a lot of times, just right next to the pillow and then it’s back at it the next day.”
“But we’re used to the structure,” Zach added. “The season is nothing new to us. We were brought up in that as college athletes: Here’s your schedule, stick to it and put in extra work when you can. So that’s how we work, too.”
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Annie helped the Sooners finish with a top-10 recruiting class, and they have the No. 6 ranked class for 2019 right now, according to the 247Sports Composite. Riley appreciates that she goes 100 miles per hour at all times and brings fresh ideas to the table. What they do in recruiting, Annie says, is common sense but maybe not common practice. And her family can see she’s uniquely suited for these long battles.
“With steeplechasers, there’s often a lot of hurdles they have to jump over,” Lori Martin said. “Sometimes you land kersplat in the water and have to be able to jump up and keep going. That’s how it goes with football recruiting. You just have to keep going like the Energizer bunny.”
Annie Hanson serves as an ambassador for the Sooners in many ways. (Photos courtesy Annie Hanson)Longtime Oklahoma commit Trejan Bridges, a four-star receiver from Carrollton, Texas, says her role in keeping in constant contact with him and his parents has gone a long way toward making him eager to join the Sooners family.
“Annie, she’s like the mother figure,” Bridges explained. “Lincoln is the father figure. On all the visits I’ve taken to schools and all that, I’ve never had a person like Annie to comfort you like this. She plays a big part in all of our recruitments. I’m not gonna say it touches a soft spot — because I try to play the hard figure — but it does.”
In the winter, the Hansons’ plans changed yet again. Dimel hired Zach to be his offensive line coach at UTEP in late December. After paying his dues for six years as an off-the-field staffer, he was finally becoming a full-time assistant. Dimel says he wanted to hire Annie, too, and reunite the couple in El Paso.
But on Zach’s first day on the job at UTEP, while he was in an HR meeting, Snyder called and extended an offer to coach tight ends as Kansas State’s new 10th assistant. Zach hated to let Dimel down, but that call was a dream come true. Returning to Kansas State would bring him closer to Annie and her parents, whose 1,800-acre farm is located 30 minutes west of Manhattan. He’d get to work again with Snyder and the coaches who brought him up in this business.
For all those reasons, Dimel understood and had no hard feelings.
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“Anytime a decision is based on family, that’s a good decision,” Dimel said. “They’re good, talented, quality people. I think they’re just a real positive couple that has a bright future in college football, that’s for sure.”
They bought their Manhattan house in March, even though they don’t get to spend nearly enough time together there. Getting fully unpacked took a few months. They made the most of their time off in the offseason, those fleeting moments relaxing at home or traveling together where they can get away and focus on each other.
“Quite frankly,” Annie says with a laugh, “we’re at a point right now where we just embrace every bit of chaos that is involved in this situation and go with it.”
In the hours after Kansas State’s 31-12 win against Oklahoma State last Saturday, Annie ran around getting their house ready.
They were hosting official visitors and Wildcats coaches that night. She got the caterers set up in the kitchen. She rented three tables, dressed them up with purple tablecloths and K-State helmets and set up seating for 24 guests in their basement. She considered putting away all the Sooners decorations down there. But they stayed up, because why hide who they are?
When Annie gets opportunities to play the role of coach’s wife, she enjoys it. Earlier that day, she and a dozen family members cheered on K-State from Zach’s office, setting up a pot of chili and snacks galore on his desk and watching the game from the balcony overlooking the north end zone.
Annie wore neutral colors — black and gray. Thanks to the Sooners’ open date, she was able to drive to Manhattan on Thursday night. She met for coffee with the coaches’ wives when she got in and hosted a wives’ dinner in July. And yes, she’s serious about helping Zach land the recruits he’s welcoming into their home.
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Is all of this unusual? Absolutely. They had to establish boundaries and sign lots of paperwork when Zach returned to K-State. They have to be careful about the information they share with each other. They’re thankful their bosses have been so understanding. Riley and Snyder say they’re unbothered by the unavoidable conflict of interest here.
“I never worry about them much,” Riley said. “I mean, they’re so classy. I was actually happy for them. It’s a hell of a lot better than North Carolina, as far as distance. I think, logistically, it’s been a great thing for them.”
They do run into conflicts from time to time. Oklahoma and Kansas State battled for Marcus Hicks, a four-star defensive end from Wichita, earlier this year. The Sooners won that one. One of the Wildcats’ official visitors last weekend was Konner Fox, a three-star tight end commit from San Antonio. He camped at Oklahoma and Kansas State this summer before committing to Zach in September.
“The reality of the thing is we know where the boundaries are and we don’t cross them,” Zach said. “When we get home from work, we’ll talk about work but it won’t be anything specific for any kind of advantage or anything like that.”
Added Annie: “There’s plenty of things I know right now that Zach will never have any idea about, and vice versa. And we keep it that way. Respect who you work with and it’s never really an issue.”
Still, this creates a quandary. Because no matter who employs them, the Hansons are teammates. They need to talk about work and ask for advice and occasionally vent like any other married couple. They’ve always coached each other up along the way and agree it’s one reason they’ve made it this far. Annie calls her husband “my stronghold and my backbone.” Zach says his wife pushes him to be a better coach and a better person every single day.
“Sometimes I say God intentionally had me marry a football coach,” Annie says, “because I’ve felt like my entire life has been planned out and has been executed the way I wanted it to be. The moment I met Zach, all the sudden there were all these unknowns and uncertainties which required me to really lean heavily on my faith.”
Zach and Annie’s families are deciding what colors to wear on Oct. 27 when Kansas State faces Oklahoma. (Photo courtesy Annie Hanson)Both their programs have dealt with those tests this season. K-State started 0-3 in Big 12 play. Oklahoma fired defensive coordinator Mike Stoops after losing to Texas. This is a tough, unpredictable and at times unfair business they’ve chosen to work in. And the Hansons go through challenging times like anyone else. What they’re doing is not easy. The moments when they truly just want to be together — when they really need each other — but can’t are undeniably difficult.
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“There are those occasional times when you say, ‘Welp, I’ve got to drive north five hours and I don’t care how crazy it sounds, I need to be there,’ ” Annie said. “That happens. We’re still trying to figure it out on our own, too, you know?”
They get through it one day at a time, because they love what they do. And a day they’ve long had circled on the calendar is coming up.
On Oct. 27, Kansas State plays at Oklahoma. The Hanson-Martin clan will all get together for that. They’re not quite sure what to wear. They say it’s going to be kind of weird and kind of wonderful.
Nobody understands and appreciates this arrangement quite like their parents. They chuckle when asked if most people understand. Sandy Hanson is used to the confused, curious questions they hear. She was once asked: “Are they OK? Like as a couple?” When Lori Martin is asked how she explains them, she answers without a second of hesitation: “They are madly in love with each other and focused toward a common goal. They’re doing what they can to accomplish great things and still figure out a way to be happily married and in support of each other as they keep moving.
“Because that’s tough. It’s really tough. We’re so incredibly proud of them.”
They’re proud, too, of how supportive Zach and Annie are of each other’s ambitions. If one of them were to give up everything for the other, Sandy Hanson says, that’s just not healthy. Annie’s parents admire that Zach has always understood that. They recognize a lot of men might not.
“Knowing he’s there wholeheartedly for your daughter, that’s very reassuring,” Lori Martin said. “He’s there through thick and thin. Best friend and the love of her life. That’s what every girl prays for and every parent prays for for their child.”
They remain hopeful, too, that the right opportunity will present itself to bring Annie and Zach back together again like they were in Chapel Hill. They say they obviously aspire to work together and be together. They hope to have a big family of their own.
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But they trust they are following a greater plan. They believe the path forward will eventually reveal itself. For now, they keep their focus affixed on the opportunity in front of them, on working as hard and as passionately as possible for their respective programs.
“We approach each day with a happy and grateful heart,” Zach said. “I mean, we are so blessed. We do our best to celebrate the scenario we’re in right now.”
They do so with a conviction that everything will align someday. It’s just a matter of timing.
“It’s never a choice of one or the other — it’s always great marriage, great career,” Annie said. “It’s possible to have it all.”
(Top photo by Max Olson / The Athletic)
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