Denver Broncos<\/a> linebacker tore his ACL in a game against Tampa Bay on Sept. 22, 2024, just the third game of the season, it was the first time he\u2019d ever felt he had been truly defeated.<\/p>\n\u201cThis was the first thing that ever actually stopped me,\u201d Singleton said. \u201cYou can keep working if you are getting cut, you can keep believing in yourself, but this was the one time I had to sit out for nine months. There is no other way around that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Singleton famously stayed on the field for the rest of the game, 49 more snaps, and led the Broncos to a win with 10 tackles before he and the team discovered the injury after the game.<\/p>\n
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Flash forward nine months, and so much has changed.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old is ready to play football once again, and he has so much more to play for.<\/p>\n
Singleton underwent surgery to repair his ACL on Oct. 15, 2024. His daughter, Tallyn Maye, was born nearly four months to the day later, in the first week of the offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the coolest thing in the world, I think,\u201d Singleton said of his daughter\u2019s birth. \u201cIt definitely puts life in perspective in the best way. She is the best motivation for me to try to play another 10 years of football.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his first child on the way, Singleton had a little extra inspiration to get his body right. That extra inspiration persists now, he said, as he prepares for his seventh NFL season.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt will be the first time, when camp starts, that I am not staying in the house with her,\u201d Singleton said. \u201dIt will be motivating to see her at practice every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
But with all that change, the opportunity to feel some familiarity seems welcome for Singleton.<\/p>\n
The Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee debuted a summer football camp at his alma mater three years ago, deciding to give back to his community just as he was beginning to find his own success in the NFL.<\/p>\n
The camp, and Singleton\u2019s legacy at Thousand Oaks High, have only grown in the years since.<\/p>\n
Kids who attended the first iteration of the camp are now student-athletes at Thousand Oaks themselves, helping to put on the event as coaches, according to Singleton.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey can really teach the game and enjoy it,\u201d Singleton said. \u201cThat\u2019s the whole point. For everyone to enjoy it, not just the (kids) who are here, but the coaches coaching and the parents watching. It\u2019s for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Singleton roamed the football field at his former stomping grounds on June 28 \u2014 greeting, teaching, blocking, cheering and signing autographs for the more than 100 kids who attended this year\u2019s camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the most special place I have ever played. My first dreams were to play high school football here,\u201d Singleton said. \u201cI think it means more to me every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
William Goldberg, 11, of Thousand Oaks was one of the first campers in line to get his T-shirt signed by the Broncos captain in the final minutes of the event.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI have always wanted something signed by a professional football player,\u201d Goldberg said, beaming. \u201cHe is really cool, one of the coolest people I have ever met.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dominic Massimino is a staff writer for the Star. He can be reached at dominic.massimino@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcsdominic on Twitter and Instagram.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: An eventful offseason for Broncos star and T.O. grad Alex Singleton<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Singleton has faced many obstacles on his path to carving out an NFL career. The former Thousand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[3882,232,6982,231,258,2426,7,6,109,38781],"class_list":{"0":"post-176143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-alex-singleton","9":"tag-broncos","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-denver-broncos","13":"tag-denverbroncos","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","17":"tag-thousand-oaks-high-school"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114784866488351436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}