Opinion: Deion Sanders has his toughest opponent yet in mission to buck college football system
ATLANTA — If he were not a coach, celebrity Hall of Famer and superstar pitchman, Deion Sanders would be a great preacher. And not just any type of clergy person. We’re talking Baptist preacher.
Take a seat in the pews at Church Prime, steeped in the history and culture of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
“I am tired of HBCUs talking about the way it used to be,” Sanders said last weekend, after his Jackson State squad was trounced by South Carolina State in the Celebration Bowl. “I want to talk about the way it is going to be!”
Let the church say Amen.
“I truly believe that HBCUs are what is now,” he preached. “Not what was, but what is now. I am tired of talking about yesterday. Let’s talk about today. If we can just unite…it will be a beautiful thing.”
Let us bow our heads.
“I get sick of people talking about a kid as if we’re not good enough,” Sanders added, undoubtedly alluding to Travis Hunter, the prized recruit who committed to Jackson State last week. “That is all of us, like we are not good enough. We are not good enough for a kid who has four or five stars. That makes no sense to me. We are more than good enough.”
Amen.
The HBCU universe is, well, blessed to have Sanders in its midst. He may not be a preacher, but since taking over Jackson State’s program nearly a year ago he has been a perfect ambassador. The buzz has been tremendous. And his passion for this mission to uplift cannot be faked.
It’s striking in at least one sense that Sanders, aka “Coach Prime,” is in this position. He didn’t attend an HBCU. Sanders went to Florida State when it was a national power. He basked in the national exposure, worked out at first-class facilities, was nourished at well-stocked training tables in the dining hall. And the big-time environment allowed him to not only hone his enormous athletic gifts, it gave him a platform to begin building his personal brand.
But Sanders also knew and spent time at Florida A&M, the HBCU school down the street from FSU that lacked facilities, exposure and other perks.
Besides, he knows. If “Prime Time” had come along around the same time as “Night Train” in a previous generation, there would have been no FSU option. He would not have been allowed to play at the institution funded partially by tax dollars paid by Black people, given the hideous Jim Crow system and segregation laws.
In that sense, Sanders has more incentive than some could imagine in trying to boost HBCUs and buck a system that at many places in a different era wanted nothing to do with Black players or coaches.
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Landing Hunter was deeper than Sanders merely one-upping his alma mater.
“There’s a systematic cancer that we have to get rid of, that we have to stop,” Sanders said.
If those sound like fighting words, let renowned sociologist Harry Edwards explain. Edwards is “totally supportive” of what Sanders is trying to achieve, but he is not so optimistic, given the mega-money stakes that support the system of big-time college football.
Sanders envisions a movement, if you will, of more blue-chip Black athletes turning down Power 5 schools and choosing HBCUs.
“If you’re going to be a game-changer, you’d better be aware of the game,” Edwards told Paste BN Sports. “What he is going up against is a 77-year system of predatory inclusion. When you watch Clemson-Alabama or Oregon-Notre Dame, it looks like Ghana vs. Nigeria. That’s the result of predatory inclusion. Big-time, Division 1 football is built on the scaffolding of Black athletes.
“Deion is pushing up against that history. I mean, it makes headlines when a major Black athlete chooses an HBCU in any sport. That’s what he’s up against.”
Edwards believes that Sanders, if he isn’t already, will become a target of a system that generates hundreds of millions of dollars, if he is successful in leading the way for HBCUs to lure blue-chip talent that almost exclusively lands at Power 5 institutions.
“Can Deion pull this off? I get it when he says, ‘I didn’t flip a Black athlete, we simply brought our own back home,’ “ Edwards said, referring to the signing of Hunter. “But if Deion thinks they are going to allow him or the SWAC to begin to cut into that talent pool based on racial allegiance without a fight, it would be naïve. It’s a dirty, slimy business.”
I’m guessing that Sanders knows what he’s up against. He has never been short on the confidence that he can make a difference. It’s just that this new landscape will be a different type of beast – with different layers.
Sanders is miffed that the NFL went 0-for-HBCUs last spring, when not a single player from HBCUs were selected in the NFL draft. On the eve of the Celebration Bowl, which pitted the champions of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) to crown a Black College Football champion, Sanders tapped into his smartphone to pull up a few notes that illustrated his point.
He relayed that over the past 20 years, of the 26 players drafted from SWAC schools, only four were taken in the first or second rounds. He said from 1960-1999, there were 55 first- or second-rounders among 196 players drafted.
“What happened?” Sanders said. “Is the problem with us? Or with the scouts and the league?”
Some of that surely has to do impact of integration borne from the Civil Rights movement, which opened doors to Black athletes and other students that didn’t exist previously. Edwards mentioned several Hall of Famers who came out of HBCUs when not afforded opportunities on a larger scale.
“That untapped pool of talent began to flow to Division 1 schools that had the resources, the exposure and the honors, like the Heisman Trophy,” Edwards said. “It was just a matter of time that the same thing that happened to the Negro Leagues was going to happen to HBCUs.”
Even so, Sanders believes there is still plenty of talent from HBCU schools that is overlooked for NFL opportunities. He said he was told recently by an NFL personnel expert that there are just six draftable players from SWAC schools for next spring’s draft.
“That’s absurd. Idiotic,” Sanders said.
Sanders played 14 seasons in the NFL, then spent 15 years in the league as an analyst for CBS and the NFL Network.
“Each week, I see guys who can play,” he said. “You’re going to tell me that with my eyes, my vision, my accolades, you’re going to tell me there are only six players in the SWAC who are draftable? You’ve got to be crazy.”
Some might say Sanders is crazy to think that he can change the college landscape. Then again, there’s nobody better equipped to try.
One thing for certain: The football world will be watching closely to see whether he can succeed.
After all, after signing Hunter, Sanders issued a warning.
“Don’t think we don’t have nothing else in the chamber,” he declared.
And the people said Amen.