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Tim Singleton just can’t keep himself from drawing a line in the sand. Either you’re with him or you’re against him. For the Hilton Head Island High School football coach, there is no middle ground.
“Loyalty is what it’s all about to me,” Singleton said. “I don’t like fair-weather people, fair-weather friends or fair-weather fans.”
Many would be content with his situation. He’s got a good family. He lives in a nice area. He’s accomplishing his lifelong goal of giving back to the community and he’s doing a job he always wanted to do. So why does he have a chip on his shoulder?
“There are a lot of doubters out there,” Singleton said. “There are a lot of people that if you’re not in that particular circle, they doubt you or they don’t give you a chance until you prove yourself.”
The need to prove himself has always been there. Singleton was a star quarterback for Hilton Head Island High School in the 1980s. But with college looming, a school counselor told him he should be filling out an application to McDonald’s rather than an application for the SAT.
“I didn’t take it as an insult because I didn’t know any better,” Singleton said. “Me and my buddies didn’t have a clue about college. I had buddies back then that thought the SAT stood for Saturday.”
Today, Singleton counts that same counselor as one of his biggest supporters. He credits his mother, stepfather and grandmother for putting him on the right track.
He also credits Taft, Calif. In high school, he was recruited to play football for Clemson but didn’t have the grades. Coaches there pushed him to Taft College to work on his academics for a couple of years. The community college was a recruiting hotbed for the Tigers and ran the same offense. Singleton was sold on the idea at the time.
“I thought California was bright lights, big city,” he said. “I had no idea where in the hell Taft was. When I got there, I realized it was in the middle of nowhere. All I saw was red clay and hills. It was truly the wild, wild west. It wasn’t Compton and East L.A., sitting around listening to N.W.A. and that kind of stuff.”Singleton says he did pull something positive out of the experience. He quickly returned to his home state, transferring toNewberry College, where he became one of the school’s most prolific quarterbacks.
“In hindsight it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me because it made me grow up a little quicker,” Singleton said. “I realized you need to take advantage of these opportunities because they don’t come often. You need a plan. Between Taft and one of my advisors at Newberry College, they set me straight. That’s why I’m doing the things I’m doing today in life.”
Along with his coaching duties at Hilton Head High, Singleton is chairman of the Gators youth football program, sits on the board of the local Boys and Girls Club, is an active member of the Parks and Recreation Commission and helped create Strive to Excel, a program designed to help students prepare for college.
His next challenge, he says, is to get the Hilton Head Island community to rally around his team, much like the Bluffton community did for the Bobcats last season.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to bleed the blue together,” he said. “From the Class of 1983 on up to now. We need to come back and support our teams and take pride in our school. We need to remember we are the big brothers of this area. We’ve had a lot of success over the past 30 years. I’m going to make sure people don’t forget that.”
Singleton knows the easiest way to fill the stadium is by putting a winning team on the field. He expects dramatic improvement this year following a 4-7 season in 2010.
Key returners include kicker Weston Mott, quarterback Michael Julian, linebacker Raheem Williams, defensive back Lamond Williams and lineman Melvin Fields. Singleton also overhauled his coaching staff, adding C.J. Frye from A.C. Flora as offensive coordinator and former Hilton Head Preparatory head coach Ron Peduzzi as the defensive coordinator. Four other new coaches are also on the staff.
As for Singleton’s line in the sand, all of the coaches and players are on his side at the moment.
“(Coach Singleton) is a motivator in my eyes,” Julian said. “He gets you pumped up and gets you going. If you need it, he will knock you down and pick you back up. Nobody is giving us much of a chance after last season but we’re going to prove ourselves this season.”
All the doubters out there are waiting.
