Hahnville’s Brandon Singleton won both the 110-and 300-meter hurdle events in the Class 5A LHSAA’s Outdoor Track and Field State Championships on Saturday.
Recently signed with University of California-Berkley to play football, Singleton said track is just something to keep him in shape for football.
Not surprising for a student whose family includes a former NFL wide receiver. Nate Singleton, his father, played for the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens. Nate is now his son’s full-time coach.
“I teach my son sports are just a vehicle for other things in life,” Nate said, adding he feels education is the most important thing.
“Brandon has done great things in the classroom as well as the football field,” he said. “He’s been on the A and B honor roll throughout high school, he was nominated for
Student of the Year and carries a 3.8 GPA.” Nate also says his son has achieved good things in athletics as well.
“He’s been a district champion three years in a row in 110 hurdles and 300-meter hurdles,” he said.
The Hahnville senior has competed in the state track meet the past two years, winning the 300-meter hurdles last year.
This year, Brandon crossed the tape in the 110–meter hurdles at 13.81 and 37.53 in the 300-meter hurdles, to win the state title in both events.
Brandon said he really didn’t feel any pressure heading into the state championships, thanks to advice from his father.
“Run every race as if it were any other,” Nate said. “Run your race, and run confident.”
Brandon’s father has been his son’s coach since he was 7 years old and it shows, according to Hahnville head track & field coach Chris Stroud.
“I wish I could take the credit for Brandon’s success,” Stroud said. “But it’s really Nate who deserves the credit.” Nate worried early on that Brandon would face a lot of pressure being the son of a pro football wide receiver, but Brandon has found a place for himself.
“My dad always wanted me to be myself,” Brandon said. “That’s why he named me Brandon, not Nate. He wanted me to be my own person.”
Nate may have wanted his son to be his own person, but he definitely persuaded him to work out to his schedule. Brandon said his dad’s workout routine for track and football were different, but were always specific for whichever sport they were training for.
“If we were training for track, we would do a lot of running,” Brandon said. “We would do pyramid drills where I would start running 600 meters, then 500 meters, 400 meters and so on until we got down to 100 meters.”
Brandon said football drills included stationary catching drills and route footwork among other receiver drills. With Cal-Berkley in the Hahnville student’s future, he says he wants to study kinesiology, or human kinetics, the scientific study of human movement.
“Of course I’m hoping to play in the league (NFL),” Brandon said. “But it doesn’t hurt to have a backup plan.”
As for his dad’s expectations for his son at college, they are pretty much what you’d expect from a good father.
“I’m hoping he gets a fine education and develops into a great young man,” he said.
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