Super Bowl Winner Opens Up About the Surprising Day That Changed His Faith

Published: September 9, 2025

By Mallory Mattingly

Super Bowl XX in 1985 marked one of the most important days in former Chicago Bears linebacker Mike Singletary’s life, but not for the reason you’d expect.

“The depth that Jesus really came into my life was really the day that we won the Super Bowl,” he said on K-LOVE’s podcast.

“Now, I had been a Christian. I had said I was a Christian. But it really wasn’t until the day of the Super Bowl that, after that game, when the confetti was coming down and everybody was crying, and we were happy,” he continued. “Everybody was running around, and everybody thought that because I was crying, I was happy too. But I was crying because this feeling and this voice that I had in me was saying, ‘You need to forgive your father.'”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw6m1RRzvyI&t=2s

In an interview with The Baylor Line, Singletary revealed that his father divorced his mother when he was 12 years old.

“And I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, you know, this has got to be Satan. Are you kidding me?’ I mean, you just won the Super Bowl — conversation that you’re having, the confetti is coming down, and I’m in my spirit, ‘You got to go forgive your father.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, oh, no, no, no. Get that out. That’s got to be.’ And so that was really the beginning of me making a difference between saying I was a believer and really beginning to walk in it,” he told K-LOVE.

He eventually realized that “forgiveness is never for the other person, it’s for you,” and even though he didn’t want to forgive his dad, he they did eventually talk.

“One day, I just picked up the phone and called him. I hadn’t talked to him in a long time. It didn’t start well. I told him, ‘Dad, I want you to know I thought about it and I just want you to know that forgive you, I made up my mind to forgive you.’ And he said, ‘Forgive me for what? Son, I put a roof over your head, I put food in your stomach, I put clothes on your back. What else is there?’ And for the next hour and a half, we yelled and screamed and cried everything else and when I hung up the phone, something was different,” Singletary recalled.

They later reunited in person, and the two became “very close” before his dad’s death.

Today, Singletary released his new book, Visualize Your Greatness: The Playbook for the Seven Cs of Success.

In it, he recounts “the principles that carried him to the highest levels of professional football. But this isn’t a story about sports. It’s about the internal battles we all face―the lies we believe, the trauma we carry, and the excuses we cling to. Through powerful personal stories and spiritual clarity, Singletary introduces readers to the Seven Cs of Success―a practical, faith-centered framework for lasting change,” a synopsis of the book reads. “This is a book for those tired of drifting. For those raised in hard places. For those who believe in God but have forgotten how to believe in themselves.”

Though winning a Super Bowl certainly changed Singletary, it didn’t compare to finally forgiving his dad and truly understanding what it means to live for Jesus.

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