On a practice field with noise and commotion in every corner, one voice stands out. It belongs to Mike Singletary.
"You've got to move now," he booms. "Richard, look at your feet! Get your feet right, Richard! We're not going to do it long if we do it right, but we have to do it right."
Singletary's signature stare is fixed on inside linebacker Richard Seigler, who, with two other linebackers, is struggling with the most grueling drill in 49ers camp.
That the three must continuously shuffle laterally between workout bags in full gear in 85-degree heat is hard enough. What makes it distinctly cruel is that these giant men must do so while crouched under a 4-foot-tall black awning. When Singletary finally gives them a break, the three linebackers woozily emerge from the awning as if they've just taken a ride in the spin cycle of a washing machine.
"It hurts like nothing else we do," Jeff Ulbrich said.
"It's the worst. You can't master a drill like that, and I think that's the point," Brandon Moore said.
Said Julian Peterson: "I hate it. I wish we could burn those bags. It's going to get us better, though. He just wants us to be the best, and there's nothing wrong with that. He's trying to make us all Hall of Famers, like himself."
And of course, no one dares complain.
The legendary eyes that made running backs shiver and quake in the 1980s now sit behind a pair of glasses. But Singletary's voice can instantly silence a room, and he has a presence that is captivating and inspiring.
"I don't know another human being, another man, that commands more respect than Mike. I do not," said coach Mike Nolan, who in January hired Singletary from the Baltimore Ravens not only to coach linebackers but to be an assistant head coach.
That move automatically added legitimacy to an organization that became the laughingstock of the league last season.
Singletary played 12 seasons with the Chicago Bears, won a Super Bowl ring in the 1985 season and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998.
"You take everything he says very seriously," said Seigler, who is in his second year. "He's very passionate about what he does, and he's very effective. It spreads over everybody.
The reason he was able to get the better of 325-pound offensive linemen boiled down to simple physics: He was lower than his opponents.
That's where the black-awning drill, something Singletary practiced while with the Bears, comes in. If the players aren't low enough, their helmets bonk against the awning.
"I don't care [if] you're playing linebacker or defensive end or defensive back, you have to play bent-kneed, because that's where your change of direction and your power come from," he said. "If a guy's playing straight-legged, then he's not going to be very effective."
RSS