Baylor has dismissed every person in a leadership position, who is involved with the football team after Pepper Hamilton found massive cover-ups and an inability to comply with Title IX in regards to multiple sexual assault cases. Jim Grobe has been named interim head coach, but that surely won’t last considering he hadn’t coached since 2013 and also had five consecutive losing seasons at Wake Forest before resigning. Baylor needs someone who can lead them to a future of success on and off the field. That man is Mike Singletary. Here are five reasons why he is the perfect guy for the job:
- He is a Baylor Alum.
Photo courtesy bleacherreport.com.
Robert Griffin III now has a statue in his honor at Baylor, but for the longest time Singletary was the best Bear ever (and still might be). Singletary was a consensus All-American in 1979 and 1980 for Baylor and used his experience there to have a successful NFL career, which has landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He used that football knowledge to coach in the NFL, eventually becoming the San Francisco 49ers head coach from 2008-2010. He still follows the Baylor program and has even said he is interested in coming back to Baylor as a head coach.
2. He disciplines his players.
Singletary had this rant after Vernon Davis picked up a personal foul in the fourth quarter of the 49ers’ game against the Seahawks in 2008. After yelling at Davis, he sent him to the locker room before the game was over to send a message. Davis had a reputation for being more about himself, rather than the team and Singletary was trying to coach that out of him. If he reacted this way to a player who made a mistake on the field, I can’t imagine how much he will have his players disciplined off the field. Baylor needs a guy like Singletary, who will hold players accountable and expect them to behave.
3. He molds boys into men.
A lot was made of the Davis-Singletary feud, but Davis grew from the experience. Before Singletary was his coach, Davis was all about himself. After Singletary left the 49ers he was a team leader. Davis has even thanked Singletary for making him a better player and person. This is a trait that all colleges should want in their coach. The job of a college head coach is to make players better athletes and better people. The latter is what Baylor’s image needs now. Singletary will mold Baylor football players into men by the time they graduate.
4. He has good character.
“Players respond to coaches who really have their best interests at heart.”- Mike Singletary
Singletary has said multiple times that every coach needs to care for his players, or they won’t buy in, but for him it’s more than that. He has all of his players’ best interests at heart and will try to do what is best for them as well as the team. He does want to win, but that comes after getting players to buy in, which shouldn’t be too hard considering how well he leads young men. Former NFL players have raved about how good of a person he is and how well he deals with adversity. Davis has mentioned how much of a father figure he was to him. With Baylor’s academic and athletic leadership tarnished by the cover-ups, Singletary has the character that will show that Baylor has one person who is able to make the right calls in a leadership position.
5. He will be able to recruit.
Baylor has become a power-house of a team in the Big 12 in recent history. They started by getting recruits who normally would have gone to Oklahoma or Texas. Now Baylor is in the class of the conference in terms of recruiting, but they will need someone to keep up the good recruiting. Although Singletary doesn’t have college head coaching experience, he will be a good recruiter. It will be hard to convince recruits to become Bears at first, because the university is in disarray, but if anyone can convince them to go to Baylor it is Singletary. His character and discipline are well documented, which is something parents of recruits will love to see. He will grab recruits’ attention with his passion for football and emotion. If you add in the fact that he is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, something every football player aspires to be included in, the athletes will be flocking to Waco to become Bears.
