MEMPHIS, Tenn. _ Mike Singletary is eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios at his desk, trying to fit in some nourishment after an afternoon practice.
His office is in the old Creative Arts Building at the former Memphis Mid-South Fairgrounds. It's just a short car ride down an access road from Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, where the Express, one of eight teams in the new Alliance of American Football, train and play their games.
Near the entrance to the cavernous building, behind a black curtain, sit a leftover stage and rows of portable chairs. To the left are the sparse, make-do offices where Singletary is preparing to meet with a few of his Express players, the box of cereal and carton of milk sitting on his desk.
This isn't exactly Halas Hall, or any of the NFL facilities in which Singletary toiled first as a Hall of Fame linebacker for 12 years with the Bears and then as a coach for another 12, including 2 { as the 49ers head coach a decade ago.
But it's where Singletary, 60, landed last spring in his yearslong quest to become a better coach.
When former Bills, Panthers and Colts general manager Bill Polian called him about joining the AAF, Singletary already had spent the gap years of his post-playing career picking the brains of great football minds around the country. He already had agreed to join a Dallas-area private high school last fall because he wanted to continue to hone his skills as a head coach. So he decided to take on a new challenge, accepting an opportunity to build a franchise from the ground up as the Express coach.
His reasoning for his recent decisions is typically straightforward. "It was an opportunity to be head coach," he says simply. Even after all these years, he still is seeking mastery of the game, for himself and those he teaches.
The venture into the developing league has proved difficult at times.
The Express are a league-worst 1-5, a start that is most notable because it allowed them last week to pick up controversial quarterback Johnny Manziel. But unsurprisingly, given his reputation as a Bears player in the '80s and '90s, Singletary believes one trait carries over from his playing career that will help him now: work ethic.
"It's being able to understand that in order to be a successful coach, much like being a player, (you might experience) a lot of failure early on," he says. "It's a very thin line. You have to know what you believe. And you have to make a decision as to, 'Do I really want to do this? Do I really think I can do this well?' And I do. So I keep working at it."
