Photo by Mike Fender

Most of the more than 1,500 attendees of last weekend's USA Football National Conference in Orlando, Florida, packed the main hall on Saturday at the Orange County Convention Center to hear and see Chicago Bears legend, 1998 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and former NFL coach Mike Singletary. 

Singletary brought his "Samurai Mike" intensity to the stage, as he discussed his path through life. 

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View Singletary's entire speech here:

 

Inspiring highlights include:

• (1:30) Singletary covers his time at Worthing High School in Houston, and the mentorship of coach Oliver Brown.

"The thing I noticed more than anything about Coach Brown was how he cared about the kids there, how he cared about the community, how he made a difference in the community. There were kids who came in and out of his office, and they had issues. He knew every one of those kids. He knew the kids who didn't play football. It was important to him that he knew about the lives of the kids, and today that's something that I'm not really sure is happening.

"If Coach Brown didn't reach for me, I wouldn't be here. He was the only man in my life that I really believed, really trusted."

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• (13:25) His days at Baylor University, where he learned from another tough disciplinarian in then-defensive coordinator Corky Nelson, who told Singletary he wouldn't understand why he was so hard for 20 years.

"It wasn't 20 years, it was 15 years. I was at practice, coaching my son, and I was on his tail. He didn't want to do it right, and I said, 'No, you're going to do it right, or you're going to quit today.' We got in the car to go home, he's looking out of the window with tears in his eyes. I'm talking to him, and it dawned on me, I'd never thought about Corky Nelson before that day. I stopped the car, pulled over and began to cry. I called Corky Nelson."

• (30:00) What Singletary considers the saddest thing in coaching - family life regrets because of too much time away from home.

"I visit a lot of coaches, a lot of great coaches. I go to their homes, I see trophies, I see plaques, pictures on the wall of their kids, grandkids, but the coaches are alone - they're retired, alone, don't have a wife, they're divorced, tough to live with. The kids don't know them. 

"Success to me is when I find a way to do what I am called to do - it is my calling to be a coach - without compromising what I must do first. The most important team in my life is my family."

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• (41:56) During the Q-&-A session, Singletary talked about the 1985 Bears - who many consider the best football team of all-time - and a pep talk he gave after they were blanked by the San Francisco 49ers in the previous year's NFC title game.

"We got on the plane, and immediately I was going through the plane, talking about, 'We are going to the Super Bowl next year. It is going to be the Bears next year.'

"By the time we landed, all of the guys were up and around and we were excited. The vision was in place for what we were going to do the next year."

• (57:20) Singletary also discussed Bears teammate and gridiron icon Walter Payton.

"If you want to have fun as a person, man, you want to be around Walter. This joker was funny, he was fun, if you were down he'd pick you up ... he would have you laughing, and be so excited about life. He was full of life.

"Needless to say, Walter Payton as a football player was absolutely tremendous. But as a man, a mentor, supersedes anything."

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Singletary's speech drew much praise from those in attendance:

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