Hungry Eyes

Sports Illustrated JANUARY 27, 1986

IF ONLY MIDDLE LINEBACKER MIKE Singletary's broken helmets could talk. We could gather up a couple from Worthing High in Houston, get the 16 from Baylor University and listen to them wail and holler about the big bang that accompanied their destruction.

Do you know what it takes to break a helmet? Have you ever tried to shatter the hull of a motorboat? With your skull?

Singletary is to intensity what George McFly is to nerdity. His sleepy samurai eyes widen to embrace contact. But he hasn't always been this way.

Born the 10th and last child of a Houston Pentecostal preacher, Singletary grew up amid strict devotion. He loved football so much, a game he wasn't allowed to play, that he would feign illness at Sunday school, go home and sit with his face inches from the TV screen with an NFL game tuned in, volume up full blast, and pretend he was right there on the sideline with the Dallas Cowboys. At age 12 he was prepared to run away so he could play football.

Fortunately his father relented, and Mike joined his junior high team at the only position he ever wanted to play—"linebacker. Where you feel the power."

That power was fully and finally unleashed at Baylor. Against Georgia in 1978, his sophomore year, Singletary knocked over two pulling linemen and then flattened the ballcarrier, knocking the man out of the game. It was an astonishing hit, made extraordinary by the fact that Singletary, the Southwest Conference's Defensive Player of the Year in 1978, '79 and '80, had lost his helmet mid-play.

Singletary's impact on the NFL was less immediate. Taken by the Bears in the second round of the 1981 draft, he fell into early disfavor with defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan, who wouldn't let Singletary play in obvious passing situations. "I really didn't like the man for a long time," says Singletary. "Now I'm glad for what he did."

What Ryan got Singletary to do was to use his dedication to become a complete linebacker. "Mike came back to Baylor and spent all his time working on his pass drops," says Baylor coach Grant Teaff.

By 1983 Singletary was playing on all downs, and though his stats are not mind-boggling, his presence is. "You know what my favorite part of the game is?" he asks. "The national anthem. I sing loud enough for the guys to hear me. And you know why? Because this is the greatest country in the world. It gives you the opportunity to compete. Goodness, I love that opportunity." His helmet bursts with the joy of it.