After a decade away from the NFL, Mike Singletary returned Monday and needed only one practice as linebackers coach of the Baltimore Ravens to feel like he never left.
“It was time for me to get back,” Singletary said.
“This is like a dream come true,” said his wife, Kim. “I think he was afraid to dream.”
That the dream became reality in Baltimore and not Chicago suddenly didn’t seem so strange.
“I believe God works out all things for good,” he said.
Head coach Brian Billick didn’t even need an entire opening day of training camp to announce: “There is no reason Mike Singletary won’t make a great coach and won’t make a great head coach.”
Already, Billick has warned Singletary to be ready to follow former linebacker coaches and Ravens defensive coordinators Marvin Lewis and Jack Del Rio onto the list of hot head coaching candidates.
“He has all the elements of a great coach–passionate, loves working with young people, high moral ethical character, great mind for the game,” Billick said. “The Mike Singletarys of our world need to be in this game. That’s the challenge I’ve put to Mike because it’s apt to be surprising how quickly that could come around.”
First, a moment with Ray Lewis, Ravens superstar inside linebacker who idolized the Bears’ Hall of Famer and now wants to supersede his memory along with that of every other linebacker who ever played.
“Yeah, that’s my goal,” Lewis said. “And the beauty of it is he knows that.”
Singletary and Lewis have agreed to work together on the same goal Singletary once had–to be better than Dick Butkus and Bill George and the few great middle linebackers who happened to play outside of Chicago.
Singletary made his linebackers write down how he could help them improve. Lewis wrote “anything” and “everything.”
“I come into camp as a baby all over again,” Lewis said. “I’m like a little kid. He’s like, `Get lower! Do this!’ I’m like, `Yeah, OK.'”
Lewis missed 11 games last season and underwent shoulder surgery. At 28, he saw how quickly his sport turns to newer, fresher faces. At least two off-season player rankings listed the Bears’ Brian Urlacher ahead of Lewis.
“[Urlacher has] got to get a ring first,” Lewis retorts. “The greatest now? I’m chasing something else. I’m not chasing or competing against Brian Urlacher. We play the same position; I can’t chase him and I hope he’s not chasing me. I’m chasing something way beyond anybody in this league.”
Singletary agrees.
“Brian, only the Lord knows, barring injury or whatever, how good he will be. But he’s not there yet,” Singletary said. “Ring or without the ring. Butkus didn’t have a ring. What I don’t want is there to be pressure on Urlacher that doesn’t have to be. Let him learn the game. Let him play it at his highest level.
“When I look at Ray play, in all honesty, he’s somebody if the fullback is coming up, he’s going to knock him out. If he has to cover somebody down the field, he’s going to do that. If he has to make a quarterback sack, he’s going to do that. He really is the whole package. I think now having Brian or whoever else is in there ahead of him, that’s good for him. I talked to him about that.”
Singletary told Lewis: “I want you to be better than me.”
“It’s like I tell my son,” Singletary said. “I’m coaching him, so I feel I have a part in that. I want him to succeed.”
With Lewis, Pro Bowl outside linebacker Peter Boulware and No. 1 draft choice Terrell Suggs converting to linebacker, Billick said he “couldn’t just throw anybody in as linebacker coach.” In Singletary, he got what second-year linebacker Bart Scott of Southern Illinois termed “incredible credibility.”
Art Modell, entering his final season as Ravens majority owner before turning the club over to minority owner Steve Bisciotti, said when he first talked with Singletary, “I was in awe. A very impressive man. I asked him why he decided to coach. He said God told him to. I asked him, `What division is He in? I want him on my side.'”
With seven children between ages 5 and 17, the Singletarys decided they didn’t have time for coaching. For 10 years, Singletary gave motivational speeches and tutored corporations on diversity and leadership training through his own company, Leadership Zone. After alma mater Baylor flirted with him to take over that program, Singletary called Bears coach Dick Jauron late last season to inform him of his coaching aspirations.
Jauron told him the linebacker position was filled with Gary Moeller. Singletary said he admired Jauron for not switching Moeller to the defensive line opening. Jauron then filled the defensive line spot with two men, Larry Brooks and ex-Bears star Richard Dent. Jauron said he could have offered Singletary a job as assistant linebacker coach, but didn’t believe that would appeal to him.
“I think it would have been very difficult for me to be an assistant because of what I know I can bring,” Singletary said. “I think for what I know in terms of how to get linebackers ready, being in the system would have been very frustrating. Not only that, but I feel God has gifted me to lead. That’s what I do.
“I think the fact Richard is there and I’m here will work out better. There’s a reason for it. All I can say is I’m very thankful to be here and I hope Richard is thankful to be where he is. I hope he can feel half of what I feel here. And we’ll see what happens. I can’t imagine, even though I love Chicago and will always love Chicago, I just believe God knows what he’s doing. Time will only tell what happens.”
Thinking about leaving Chicago was worse than actually doing it, Kim said. Once the decision was made, the Singletarys bought a new home within one week and sold their Chicago home in four days. They had a party and gave friends Ravens hats and T-shirts.
“It helps [that] the Bears hadn’t been doing so well,” Kim said, “so our friends can keep one eye over in Baltimore. I asked Mike, `Could you have gone to Green Bay?’ He said, `Don’t even make me have to make that decision.'”
Singletary said he is grateful that Billick is not the kind of obsessive coach who believes any time away from the office is wasted. That’s what scared Singletary about coaching. As a player, he resented missing family time because he was admittedly obsessive, notoriously studying tapes at home.
“He didn’t know how to balance,” Kim said. “He’s really working to balance family and coaching.”
That doesn’t mean he has given up home video study altogether. His home office has three computers at a long table where the kids do homework. Right above the computer screens, Singletary has a screen where he can watch football tape. They all sit in the same room and work together.
“We’ll see how that goes,” Kim said.
