He lived, He loved and He laughed!

MacDaniel D. Singleton, a legendary figure in New England athletics for more than 60 years, passed away unexpectedly on Monday, Feb. 20 at his home in Windham, NH. He was 74.

 

Drafted by the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball in 1966, Mac instead embarked on a career in professional football, signing out of college with the then Boston Patriots. In addition to the Patriots, during his playing career, Mac played for the farm clubs of the Green Bay Packers and Denver Broncos, and was named captain of the Lowell Giants and Boston Steam Rollers.

 

After his professional playing career came to an end, Mac embarked on a coaching career that spanned six decades. In 1975, Singleton was hired as the head football coach at Boston State, where he also served as the Athletic Director of Intramurals and head women’s basketball coach, making him the first African-American head football coach in New England since 1904. Despite the racial violence that roiled the city around them during its busing crisis, the Boston State football program stood tall as a beacon of racial unity, something those involved in the program attributed squarely to Mac.

 

"At a time when there was a big barrier between black and white in Boston, we loved each other like brothers and it was because of Mac," said Bill Joyce in the 2006 Globe article. "He was like a father to us. We loved the guy."

 

According to a 2006 profile in the Boston Globe: "Singleton united a diverse band of players from the city's toughest corners, led them to a conference title, and taught them enduring lessons about racial harmony… he conquered the racial hostilities of the time by persuading white players from Charlestown and South Boston, for example, to bond with black teammates from Roxbury and Dorchester,” the article continued.

 

Born in Sumter, S.C., as a child, Singleton was a firsthand witness to the horrors of segregation and the Jim Crowe south. But he never let his childhood experiences impact the way he viewed people.

 

“I didn't see color. I never have. To me, people are people,” he later remembered.

 

After three years at Boston State, Mac was hired as an assistant football coach on Joe Rustic’s staff at Harvard University, a position he held for 16 years, along with also serving as an assistant baseball coach at the school. In addition to Harvard, Singleton spent time as an assistant football coach for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, the Arena League’s Connecticut Coyotes and Tampa Bay Storm, the Scottish Claymores of NFL Europe, as well as Lafayette College, American International, and Plymouth State.

 

Singleton’s selfless service to his players was a staple of his career everywhere he went. During his time at Boston State, he spent half of his annual salary to send his players to summer football camp and payed for six to travel to North Carolina for pro tryouts, staying up late into the morning hours to pack lunches for all of his players when he coached at MIT, and even paying the travel expenses for a player of his to fly from Florida to California for a friend’s funeral.

 

Singleton also served as the head coach of MIT’s baseball team, before spending three seasons as a minor league hitting coach in the Los Angeles Dodgers under former General Manager Paul DePodesta, a former player of Mac’s at Harvard. (Singleton was, in fact, quoted in the New York Times’ bestseller Moneyball).  

 

The youngest of 10 brothers and sisters born to Roosevelt and Maggeline Singleton, Mac moved to Everett as a child. After a fire burned down his family’s home, Singleton enrolled in the Malden Public Schools, where he emerged as a star for Malden High School in football, baseball and basketball, as well as also lettering in track and field and wrestling.

 

After a stint at Otero Junior College where he lettered in football and wrestling, Mac was a three-sport star at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., where he was a 3-sport athlete in football, baseball and basketball. He later received his Master’s degree from Boston State College (UMass Boston).

Most recently, Mac was the physical education teacher and coach at Everett High School. He loved to mentor students. We will miss you "Big Guy"!

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