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Vantz Singletary Defensive Tackles First Year E-mail: vjs4@buffalo.edu Phone: 716-645-6810 Office: 104 Stadium

University at Buffalo head football coach Turner Gill has announced that Vantz Singletary has joined the UB staff as defensive tackles coach.

Singletary has spent the past two seasons as defensive line coach at Tennessee-Chattanooga and has 11 years of Division I coaching experience with an emphasis on the defensive line. Throughout his collegiate coaching career, Singletary has tutored more than a half dozen future NFL players.

Among his accomplishments at Chattanooga was a 2006 game against Elon when the Mocs' set a school record with nine sacks. He also mentored All-Conference selection Charles Profit at Chattanooga.

Prior to his time in Chattanooga, Singletary spent eight years as an assistant at the University of Hawai'i on former coach June Jones' staff where he mentored a number of future professionals, while helping build the Warriors' program to a perennial contender in the Western Athletic Association.

While at Hawai'i, Singletary coached 11 All-WAC selections, including NFL draft choices Travis LaBoy and Isaac Sopoaga. LaBoy was the WAC Defensive Player of the Year, a second-team All-American and a second-round NFL selection of the Tennessee Titans, while Sopoaga was a fourth round pick of the San Francisco 49ers. Sopoaga was also a finalist for the 2004 Bronco Nagurski Award, given to the nation's top defensive player. He also recruited and coached current NFL players Mel Percell (Cleveland Browns) and Ikaika Alama-Francis (Detroit Lions).

Singletary's coaching career began at Trinity College. While on staff at Trinity from 1992 to 1996, he worked as the defensive line and linebackers coach, the defensive coordinator and the recruiting coordinator. Herbert Coleman became the school's first NFL draft pick in 1995 under Singletary's tutelage.

He served as the defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator at Southern University in 1997 and 1998, coaching NFL draft choice Chris White. In addition, the Jaguars won the NCAA I-AA Black College National Championship in 1997 and won back-to-back Southwestern Conference titles (1997-98).

Singletary starred at defensive tackle and linebacker at Kansas State in 1987 and 1988, for head coach Stan Parrish. He came to KSU after spending two years at Blinn Junior College in Texas, earning his degree from Kansas State in 1990. Following his collegiate career, he received a free agent tryout as a linebacker and a lineman with the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles.

A native of Houston, TX, Singletary has worked as a summer intern at NFL camps for many years, including stints with Arizona, Houston, New Orleans, Tampa Bay, San Diego, San Francisco and Cincinnati. In June 2004, he was one of 10 minority coaches to be invited to the NCAA Expert Coaching Program in Indianapolis, IN.