The Jackson State coach had a superb multi-faceted playing career. Now he may help upset the traditions that have ruled college football for years
Deion Sanders is the ultimate jack of all trades. As a college athlete at Florida State he starred at football, baseball and track. Selected fifth in the 1989 NFL draft Sanders instantly proved a triple threat as a cornerback, special teams returner and situational wide receiver. When he wasn’t dazzling on the gridiron he wowed Major League Baseball as a bag-swiping outfielder. Throughout Neon Deion crackled with charisma and swagger – delighting the masses with his brash fashions, touchdown dances and gift for the gab. In retirement he continued to enthrall as a television analyst, preacher and reality TV star.
Still: when the football hall of famer decided to try his hand at coaching football, it felt like a gig too far. Although he gathered some experience at the high school level in Texas, Sanders looked ill-prepared to make the jump to Jackson State – a south-central Mississippi outpost at quite a remove from the spotlight. A historically black college (or HBCU), Jackson State competes in the shadow of the Alabamas and Michigans of the land and operates under an anemic athletic budget. Sanders’s bold move looked like a bored celebrity trying his hand at coaching and threatened to go down like his attempt to run a charter school, an abject failure.
