Producers’ Pick | Mike Singletary: NFL Hall of Famer on Importance of Fatherhood

This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Shake up your back to school routine at Whole Foods Market with fresh produce, snacks, supplements, and local favorites to jazz up any lunchbox or pantry. And with a big selection of ready-to-heat meals like vegetable lo mein and chicken tikka masala, it's easy to keep the family fueled up for the week. Always made with the high standards you trust from Whole Foods Market, like banning 230-plus ingredients from all food.

All the more reason to make the flavors of Whole Foods Market part of your routine. The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmeade. The fatherhood festival is coming up, providing a chance to talk in an open forum with some very well-known names about the needs for fathers in the home.

Anthony Munoz helped put it together. He did have a situation where his dad wasn't in the home for a lot of his young life, knows what he missed, and you are part of trying to give back to the fatherhood festival. Before we talk about the game in life, could you talk about why it's important for you to be involved in this big event? Well, you know, first of all, it's happening June 17th through Sunday the 19th, and it's Father's Day weekend, and it's going to be at the Hall of Fame Village in Canton, Ohio, and we're really excited about everyone that's going to be there. It's going to be fun for everybody and, you know, even mom.

So we're very excited. We're going to have music, and the reason it's really important for fathers to be there and fathers to care is because our country is dependent on it, and I really believe that there are a lot of things that we can talk about. We can talk about jobs. We can talk about what's happening with our kids. We can talk about what's happening in our marriages. We can talk about, but I believe it's going to start with fathers being equipped with how to run their households, how to stand with that mom and make a difference in that home and leave their kids in a way that would make a difference. Yeah, I mean, get your tickets.

Ticketmaster.com, and one of the highest country music stars, Jordan Davis, is going to be there, the Bideur Tour, which is a song, I think it's number one in the country. So, Mike, you personified leadership with one of the best defenses around, even when the Bears were emerging. You always heard about the leadership of this middle linebacker who never should have been this good. What role did your dad play in your life?

You know, it's really interesting. My dad, I really didn't think up until 12 years old, because he and my mom divorced when I was 12. I didn't think he did a great job until I got older. At 12 years old, I'd been around him enough, I had worked with him enough, he was in the construction business, had his own business, and his work ethic.

Being able to just watch him, I really didn't, you know, being a father and what you give to a son or a daughter is not so much what you say to them, but it's everything that you do. And I think that my father worked his tail off. I never saw anybody that worked harder than he did. And if there's one thing that I have in my life that I can always point my dad to, is the work ethic. No one's going to outwork me. They may be bigger, faster, everything else smarter, but when it comes to working, hey, you better be ready tomorrow, the next day to come, because I'm coming with it. And to me, I still say thank you to my dad for that.

So with this fatherhood festival, you're trying, you not only think it's important for fathers with Father's Day here, obviously, but you also think there's a huge gap in this country. You think it's bigger. It's bigger than anything else.

You talk about the ripple effect. Bad parenting leads to situations like we had in Uvalde and Buffalo, don't you think? Absolutely.

Absolutely. You know, kids are crying out for love. They're crying out for guidance.

They're crying out for someone to show them the way that they trust. And someone that loved them and someone that they love and respect. And who better than the father? I really believe that when you begin to look at the statistics in our country of the difference that a father makes, and trust me, I was raised by my mother. My mother did a tremendous job.

I thank God for my mom every day. But my dad, it's something about that father, when he stands up and becomes the man that he's called to be, man, he can make a tremendous difference, not only in that home, but in the community. Mike, where did you get this idea?

I'm talking to Mike Singletary now. Where did you get this idea, and when did you realize there's a need for a fatherhood festival, June 17th through the 19th? Well, I'm just excited about the opportunity that someone would have to say, hey, you know what? Let's get the men together in this country. Let's get the fathers together and talk about what it means to stand and what it means to guide and lead. Because that's what we're designed to do. And if we can get this turned around, if we can get the word out and have people understand, particularly fathers, understand, then maybe those wives can begin to respect a man.

Maybe those kids can begin to listen to a man. But I think right now we've kind of walked away from our job. And I think right now we're not doing the things that we're supposed to do. And because we're not leading, our country is going all over the place.

Until we come back into those homes and begin to say, hey, dad's back. Let's go to work. I apologize for not being here.

Screw it up, whatever that is. But I'm here now. Let's go. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Shake up your back to school routine at Whole Foods Market with fresh produce, snacks, supplements and local favorites to jazz up any lunchbox or pantry. And with a big selection of ready to eat meals like vegetable lo mein and chicken tikka masala, it's easy to keep the family fueled up for the week. Always made with the high standards you trust from Whole Foods Market, like banning 230 plus ingredients from all food.

All the more reason to make the flavors of Whole Foods Market part of your routine. So, Mike, a couple of things listening. The last thing I want to do is start dividing people up on their race and religion. But in the black community especially, the numbers are staggering how few have a mother and dad in the home.

What happened? Well, you know, that's a great question. You know, what happened to the black family?

What happened to the fathers? And, you know, I think everything has a root. You know, it's so easy right now for a lot of people to look at what's happening right now, but it didn't start there. It started many years ago. It started in slavery.

It started in segregation. It started in, you know, there's so many things set up for, you know, that father not to be married. There's so many things set up for the father if he's at home, and then mom's not going to get money from welfare.

It's hard for him to get a job. So, what has to come to the place of, you know what, I am the one. Every father, every black man, white man, whoever it is, have got to stand up and take responsibility for where they are. Now, I may not have gotten myself into this hole. There may be a lot of other things that happen in order for me to be where I'm at in this hole, and I'm looking up and, man, I got a long way to go.

But guess what? I can get out of that hole. And if I can climb out of that hole while I'm climbing out of that hole, it's going to give me the confidence, it's going to give me the hope, it's going to give me everything I need.

By the time I get out of that hole, I'm ready to go to work and make a difference and look around for somebody else that needs some help as well. But it didn't just get there automatically. There's been a system in place, unfortunately, and I'm not playing any kind of card, I'm not playing any kind of game, but I think you know what I'm talking about and anybody else who's listening. You know, things take time to get where they are. And I just think we can all talk about, well, how did it get here?

How did it happen? Well, that's not important. What's important is what are you going to do about it today? And that's where we are and that's what we're going to be talking about from Friday to Sunday. Understood.

A couple of things. I remember, you know, I did a show with Jim Brown for four years, and he told me when he was at Syracuse, best player in the country. And when they go down south, they were told the black players are going to stay in a separate hotel. And of course, his coach never went along with that and they would end up finding a way to get around it. And then you have in the 60s, I just went through the Ford Museum and they have Rosa Parks bus, the same bus that she refused to go to the back of the bus.

And they have like the actual water fountains were black and white. And you saw in the south, the segregation that existed were roughly the same age, just a little bit older than me. And I remember, you know, I was in the North. I didn't see that. I read about it.

It was on tests and studies and you'd wrote papers on it. But do you when I see the when I see the South now and I see the North now see American now I see progress. Does Mike Singletary see progress? It depends on what progress means. You know, progress means different things to different people.

I think certainly there's progress. You know, there's not, you know, as many you don't see people getting hung. You don't see people, you know, if you go to this place, you're going to get beat to death. You don't see that.

But but I think there are still things in place. You know, it's kind of like the old fleas test that they had. You know, a lot of times when you look at those fleas that they put in that jar and said, you know what? Fleas keep jumping out of the jar where they put a glass top over that jar and the fleas were trying to jump out and they couldn't jump out. And every time they jumped, they hit their head. Finally, after the fleas hit their heads enough, they took to they took the top off.

And guess what? They didn't jump anymore. And I think a lot of times when you look at African-Americans in this country, so many of us have stopped jumping. You know, we feel like we don't have anything to jump for. And there there are certainly a lot of people out there that are still jumping out of that jar, man. And I'm proud of them.

But a special person to do that. And you're and you're making sure people know the top's off. Mike Singletary, thanks so much for being here and best of luck in the festival, the 17th to 19th. Pick up your tickets now at Ticketmaster.com. Another great reason to go to Canton. Great job, Mike.