Time, Alex Singleton has realized, is worth paying for. In years past, when wheeling onto I-70 on trips to downtown Denver, he and his wife, Sam, would always avoid taking a toll road. It usually cost around $4. It was never worth it.
Last November, the Broncos’ captain was diagnosed with testicular cancer after an NFL drug screening flagged an elevated hormone in his blood. A relatively carefree man’s life flipped. In the months after emergency surgery, from conversations with testicular-cancer advocates, Singleton understands that random screening may have saved his life. He was given heaps of time, really, that he didn’t know he was in danger of losing.
These days, he and Sam pay for the express lane.
“Anything like that,” Singleton told The Post on Wednesday, “I’m taking the toll road from now on. Whatever it is.”
The pendulum has swung so many times, through Singleton’s life, that he has stopped straining to push it in any particular direction. He endured more than a dozen failed tryouts as an undrafted linebacker and a stint in the CFL before establishing himself in the NFL. Finally minted as a long-term starter in Denver, he tore his ACL in 2024. Then he got cancer. Months later, after surgery to remove a tumor, he earned a new two-year contract, and he and his wife . There is no predicting life; there is only being “optimistic about what’s going to come next,” as Singleton mused, and preserving the time to do so.
He has now dedicated himself to helping others preserve that time, too.
In November, Kim Jones, founder of the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation, cold-emailed Singleton shortly after hearing of his diagnosis. The next day, Singleton hopped on a call with her for an hour and a half. He told her about symptoms he’d been feeling and shrugged off for a couple months. And Jones — respectfully — chastised him.
“I said, ‘You are the typical male that lets things go,'” Jones said. “And it could have spread a lot faster than what it did for him. So thank God he had that random drug screening.”
In October 2007, Jones’ son Jordan was diagnosed with late-stage testicular cancer two weeks before his 14th birthday. He fought, made a full recovery, relapsed close to a decade later, and died in 2016. Jones , an organization that has since established programs providing financial and educational assistance to testicular cancer patients and hosted conferences at cancer centers across the country. Singleton came away from that first call wanting to help
“I was just kinda gonna do whatever I could do,” Singleton said, “to be involved in that.”
In April, Singleton walked through Austin, Texas, with 50 other semi-naked men hosted in partnership with TCAF. In May, he flew to Indianapolis on two separate weekends to support the foundation’s outreach efforts at the Indy 500, telling his story to medical professionals and racing fans alike as part of . His Instagram has become a , with such photos of Singleton holding up a “Check Your Nads” sign at that April march.
The primary goal around testicular-cancer awareness, Jones said, is to break down any existing taboo around discussing one’s testicles so men learn to check themselves on a regular basis. Enter Singleton, a 32-year-old linebacker mature enough to captain a Super Bowl contender and disarming enough to, well, crack jokes about his nads.
“I am profoundly grateful to Alex – for Alex – for him using his platform to help support the fight,” Jones told The Post. “Because his voice will help prevent late-stage diagnosis. It will help save lives.
“I mean, if we had this before Jordan’s diagnosis and Jordan was diagnosed early, he would still be here today.”
There is an innate and complicated balance, Singleton is aware, to being an ambassador for a potentially fatal disease that becomes radically less harmful if discovered early. Testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer between men ages 20 to 40, but is approximately 99% curable when discovered at Stage 1, . The greatest defense, as Jones says, is education.
Another ultimately related defense, too, is humor. Nut-related slogans stick, Jones has found. And Singleton’s attitude toward such discussion was shaped by his doctor, who introduced himself to Singleton in a way the linebacker has not forgotten.
“He calls himself a plumber,” Singleton said. “Which was funny. He was like, ‘Yeah, I work on nuts, d— and ass.’”
At the Indy 500, Singleton became fast friends with Jack Harvey, a Dreyer Reinbold driver whose No. 24 Chevrolet partnered with TCAF and Fennec Pharmaceuticals for the “Indy’s Nuts” campaign. The first time they met was on a shoot for a “video about balls,” as Harvey put it. And Singleton fired off a joke, from his own lived experience through surgery, that Harvey would’ve never dreamed of making.
“I don’t exactly remember what it was,” Harvey said. “But it revolved around — a singular nut. And I was like, ‘OK, I guess we’re just diving straight in.’”
Singleton, by nature, is a man who does not take himself especially seriously. In an early-November game against the Raiders — while set for cancer surgery the very next day — he celebrated a tackle by cupping his hands under his privates in a “big-nuts” celebration. And the combination of both serious lived experience and unserious demeanor made Singleton the “perfect spokesperson” for the Austin march, as Nads co-founder Dan Baird said.
“That’s all it is,” Singleton said. “Itap getting comfortable with talking about ‘em, and then being able to discuss stuff.
“Because, I think itap the same thing with breast cancer,” he continued. “I mean, when I was 10 years old, before the whole pink movement in the NFL — if you would’ve said, ‘breast,’ I would’ve thought it was funny at first. Or ‘boob.’ But I think we have normalized breast cancer in our culture. And I think that makes it good. It makes women be able to talk about it. Itap comfortable if you have breast cancer to say, ‘I have breast cancer.’
“And I think a lot of men are kinda afraid to go to a doctor to have something wrong with them, because itap not ‘manly.’ But if we can normalize words like ‘Balls’ and ‘nads’ and ‘nuts’ — when there’s something wrong, you’ll say something.”
A living, breathing example of such a phenomenon: Singleton’s Broncos teammate Jahdae Barron, an Austin native who just so happened to be back in his hometown the day of the Nads march. While Singleton was walking back with the group in April, Barron came up — with no prior warning — and tapped him on the shoulder. His mother, Barron explained, had seen Singleton promoting the march on social media and asked him why he wasn’t going. So Barron hopped in an Uber downtown, fell in with Singleton and the group, and started chanting “Check your nads!” at random passersby.
Every day since, through the Broncos’ offseason programming, Barron has randomly yelled “Check your nads!” at teammates in the building, Singleton said.
“It’s funny,” Singleton said. “But it’s also like, man, if it just takes one guy one time in their career to feel a bump on their nuts and — they don’t have to tell Jahdae, they don’t have to tell me — but if they tell one of our trainers like, ‘Hey, I got this funny bump,’ just because he’s been yelling it every day, thatap incredible.”
Singleton intends to continue doing several events a year to support TCAF, and Jones has offered him a spot on the foundation’s board of directors. Beyond TCAF, too, he wants to spread the message to give one’s self to something, as he told The Post. Not just money.
“Give your time,” Singleton said.
He has learned its value in all aspects, after all, heading into a season where these Broncos have only a few months to capitalize on lofty expectations.
“Knowing the team we have, and knowing how we’re evolving and how I want us to evolve, and using my messaging or my platform with the guys to do that – to just not let mundane days not make us better,” Singleton said. “Having that fear of losing it all just six months ago — now, I have two more years. So itap like, take advantage of those and make them as great as we can.”
