This Quiet Man Plays With a Roar : In His Final Season, the Bears’ Singletary Hasn’t Lost His Desire to Be the Best

LAKE FOREST, Ill. —  Mike Singletary, the 12-year NFL veteran who is in the last half of his last season as the Chicago Bears’ middle linebacker, is this kind of athlete:

--As a tackler, he broke 16 helmets before graduating from Baylor University.

--He has worn a hearing aid for years, on the field and off.

--He spends timeouts praying for his victim when, after Singletary hits him, a running back can’t get up.

--He met his wife in a library.

--Because he despises small talk and gossip, Singletary usually carries a book to parties.

--At game time he is a screamer who, rushing in to make the tackle, yells at the top of his voice.

--This is his 10th year as defensive captain of the Bears.

--He wants U.S. movie makers to make family versions of all the movies they release, leaving out the profanity and nudity.

--He is known as “Samurai.”

--He doesn’t cuss. His strongest oath is dog, as in doggone.

--After studying game tapes all week, he is so well prepared for Bear opponents that some accuse him of stealing their playbooks.

--He has played in the last nine Pro Bowls.

--Last week, after a blocker hit him in mid-air in a memorable Monday night collision and knocked him on his back, Singletary got up and warmly congratulated the opponent, Minnesota Viking guard Randall McDaniel.

In that nationally televised collision, the famous hitter was the hittee for a change as the Bears lost the key game of their season to the Central Division’s new powerhouse, 38-10.

And because Singletary previously announced that this will be his last season as a player, the McDaniel hit was seen by some as the end of an era--for the 34-year-old middle linebacker as well as the team he loves.

But Singletary doesn’t see it that way.

“It was just another play,” he said after reviewing the tapes at the Bears’ facility. “I was coming in on a slant, and when I jumped, (McDaniel) caught me in the air. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d lined up over him.”

The 50-pound weight differential--Singletary goes 228 pounds, McDaniel 278--is irrelevant, in his view.

Size, he maintains, is always irrelevant. Throughout his career, Singletary, one of the NFL’s smallest linebackers, has routinely defeated bigger men.

“It’s technique, leverage and attitude (that count),” he said. “Nobody intimidates me. Next time in that (situation), I’ll be squared up. Next time, I’ll take him.”

Next time.

He doesn’t seem to realize that almost certainly, next time will never come. He doesn’t think in those terms. The truth, though, is that for both Singletary and the 1992 Bears, it’s almost over. The Vikings are off by themselves now. And next year, Singletary will be off the team.

This is it for him.

This might be it for both him and Lawrence Taylor, the injured New York Giant linebacker, who has also announced his retirement at the same age, 34, after the same 12 NFL seasons.

The finest of their era, perhaps the finest ever at their positions, both dominated through the years that Taylor played outside linebacker and Singletary lined up in the middle.

When, as he expects, Singletary leaves with no regrets, he will be remembered as the defensive quarterback of his time, sharing the respect that old-timers have for Les Richter and Don Paul of the Rams, Ray Nitschke of the Green Bay Packers, Dick Butkus and Bill George of the Bears, and Jack Lambert of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Half a century down the road, conceivably, the historians will prefer Singletary as the greatest of them all at middle linebacker, except, possibly, Butkus.

Is there one single quality that leads a good football player to greatness?

“Yes, it’s attitude,” Singletary said. “I want my opponents to know this: Come my way, you’ll pay.

“You overcome physical (shortcomings) with attitude, and I don’t just mean desire and dedication, or persistence. I mean obsession. I am a man obsessed, and I admit it. I take no shortcuts and I take no prisoners.”

SOARING LIKE EAGLES

Years ago, before Texas businessman Ross Perot was a household name, Singletary knew about him. He visited Perot in Houston, where he saw, as the dominant symbol in Perot’s office, a sculptured eagle.

“Eagles never flock,” Perot told him.

Because Singletary sees life the same way, he went home and found a sculptured eagle of his own. And today, it’s in the weight room of his handsome home in Barrington, a northern Chicago suburb.

In Singletary’s 12 seasons in the NFL, he was asked the other day, who else has soared like an eagle? Who are the standout players of his time?

“On my own team, I think of (running back) Walter Payton and (defensive lineman) Dan Hampton,” he said. “(Defensive back) Gary Fencik--a very smart guy. (Quarterback) Jim McMahon. For talent, (linebacker) Wilber Marshall. The fastest, (wide receiver) Willie Gault.”

On other teams?

He first mentioned Billy Sims, a 1980-84 Detroit Lion running back.

“Sims was a great back, difficult to defend against,” Singletary said. “So was (Houston’s) Earl Campbell.”

Then he picked three former Tampa Bay Buccaneers--guard Sean Farrell, running back James Wilder and tight end Jimmie Giles.

“I loved to play against Farrell,” Singletary said. “He didn’t hold or cheat. Giles was an outstanding tight end.”

Next, Singletary named two San Diego Chargers, tight end Kellen Winslow and running back Chuck Muncie, and finally a New England Patriot, John Hannah.

“A great guard,” Singletary said of Hannah.

Five quarterbacks are on Singletary’s all-time list.

“There was a Snake who was a snake,” he said admiringly of Ken Stabler of the Raiders.

Then he named Dan Fouts of the Chargers and Steve DeBerg, now of Tampa Bay.

“DeBerg is a magic man with the football,” he said. “Now you see it, now you don’t.”

Finally, “(San Francisco’s) Joe Montana, of course. And Miami’s Dan Marino.”

The best team Singletary has played on was Chicago’s only Super Bowl champion, Coach Mike Ditka’s 1985 season team, which finished 18-1 after scoring 46 points against New England in the championship game.

Best, but not most fondly remembered.

“The (1985 Bears) have never been my favorite team,” Singletary said. “My favorite year was 1988.”

That was the year of a 12-4 Bear team that lost the NFC title game to San Francisco, 28-3.

“The (1985 season champions) got selfish,” he said. “That season, all of a sudden, America discovered the Bears, and everyone was concerned with getting the (credit). It wasn’t a close-knit team.

“I’d rather have fun, and it was more fun in (1988), even though we didn’t have the stars. Wilber Marshall was gone, Willie Gault was gone. William Perry and Richard Dent got hurt, and all we had up front was Dan Hampton and Steve McMichael. But it was fun to see what we could do as a team.

“We won on heart alone.

“I hope this year’s team will be like that.”

ACCEPTING CHALLENGES

The intensity Singletary brought to the Bears has been with him all his life. At Baylor, for example, where he was determined to get a degree, he often tracked his professors to their offices, and talked with them by the hour.

“It was great,” he says.

As Singletary tells it, one of them found the right solution.

When the young student-athlete dropped by for what he hoped would be another two-hour chat, there was a note on the professor’s office door: “Not today, Mike.”

Early in his Bear career, Singletary was also determined to buy a new house for his mother. After her husband--Mike’s father, a Pentecostal minister-- left home, she held down three jobs at the same time during Mike’s boyhood, rearing a family of 10 by herself in a depressed area of Houston.

She wouldn’t let Mike get a job to help out, advising that boyhood is for study and playing games.

But when he wanted to use some of his Bear savings--he makes $1.2 million per year--to get her a new house in a nicer area, she refused to leave, saying that the old neighborhood was good enough for her.

So he tore down her house and put a new one up on the same lot.

“She loves it,” he said.

In his two books, “Singletary on Singletary” and “Calling the Shots,” he relates that he is one-eighth Mexican, three-eighths black, one-quarter German, and one-quarter Cherokee Indian.

“I’m a product of that wonderful mixture,” he writes.

He has continued the family’s melting-pot tradition, he adds, with an interracial marriage. He and his wife Kim, a white Baylor graduate who doubles as his business manager, are the parents of two daughters and a son.

Admittedly sensitive, unusually emotional and shy, he said that he isn’t physically up to the big job he holds in pro football.

“I’m one of those guys who are too small, too slow, and not smart enough,” he said.

But not too proud. The way he prepares for each game has made him the player he is.

“No (NFL player) sees more game tapes than I do,” he said. “I don’t know that for a fact, but nobody could. I feel that I’ve got to know every option on every (offensive play), every possibility the (offense) has, so I can alert my teammates to all possible situations.

“The game, as far as I’m concerned, is like a final exam. The game is test time. I’ve studied every (opposing player) on every play in every tape. One of them is the clue to each play--screen, run, draw, pass, whatever. It all shows up in the tapes, if you take the time to look.

“The worst crime is ignorance--seeing (an offensive player) move and not knowing what it means. A lot of guys can play football as well as I can. My job is to out-work them, out-think them, and out-hit them.”

He does most of his weight work at home, but cautions that more players are hurt in weight rooms than on the field.

“I have a basement full of weights, and a shelf full of books on how to use them properly,” he said. “You need both.”

Singletary, it seems, would be a good coach. But the Bears turned him down on a request to be a player-coach this season, and he is not sure where the future will take him.

For next year, he is considering broadcasting and business offers as well as coaching.

“I want to spend my time wisely,” he said. “That means spending much of it with my wife and children, growing together, learning together, making life interesting for one another.”