Niners interim head coach Mike Singletary said today that he has prepared his entire life to be a coach. But he had other priorities that stood in the way of his turning to that profession after his playing career concluded.
“In my last year in the league I began to ask coaches around the league that I really respected how they balanced the time between coaching and family, being a father, being a husband,” Singletary said.
“And they said, ‘You have to make a decision very early. You will not see your kids. You won’t see your wife, so be prepared for that.’ And based upon that, I knew that I would not be coaching.”
Singletary and his wife, Kim, have seven children, ranging in age from 10 to 22.
“I wanted to make sure my kids knew who their father was,’ Singletary said. “I never considered winning Super Bowl trophies being more important than being a Super Bowl dad.”
Singletary said he came home one day and his wife told him, after much praying, that it was time for him to become a coach. His playing career ended in 1992. His first season of coaching was 2003 with the Baltimore Ravens as inside linebackers coach.
“I think I was driving her crazy with what happened, but she was right,” Singletary said, “and I was very thankful that she had the wisdom and the timing.”
One of the knocks heard around the league was that Singletary was not known to be a coach who invested long hours and slept in his office. But that does not mean he does not work as hard as some of his colleagues, he said.
“I believe in using my time very wisely, and I’m going to do my job, and I’m going to do it the very best that I can,” Singletary said. “But I’m also going to have balance in life. While I’m here, I’m working my tail off to be the best coach that I can be, but when it’s all said and done, I just want to make sure that there’s balance in my life.”
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In an interview today on “The SIRIUS Blitz” on SIRIUS NFL Radio, former 49ers coach Mike Nolan told host John Riggins that Jed York was the only person in the room when he was fired.
“When they had told me I was fired, which Jed York had done, there was a lot of speculation about who did what,” Nolan said. “But Jed York was the one that told me and he told me in a one-on-one conversation in my office.”
On Tuesday, GM Scot McCloughan said both he and Jed York were present when Nolan was fired.
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