Deion Sanders made a huge splash when joined Southwestern Atlantic Conference (SWAC) school Jackson State as head football coach in 2020. Ever since ‘Prime Time’ became the JSU coach, the school has been on the up and up. They are landing big time recruits and winning college football games like there is no tomorrow. So it makes sense that CBS show 60 Minutes would want to sit down with the two-time Super Bowl champion.
Deion in Prime Time Again
Deion Sanders had an extraordinary sporting career. He won two Super Bowls and played in a baseball World Series, and he once even played two professional sports in the same day. Known as “Prime Time” in his NFL playing days, Sanders recently turned his hand to coaching college football. He took up the head football coach position at Jackson State in 2020 and guided them to the conference championship in 2021. They have started this year 6-0 and are landing some big time college football recruits.
This Sunday, his interview with Jon Wertheim of 60 Minutes aired and he gave his thoughts on anything and everything.
Coach Prime tells us why
“I truly believe with all my heart and soul that God called me collect and I had to accept the charges,” Sanders said jokingly when asked why he was at Jackson State. He said that even though it costs him sleep, he loves every minute of it.
“[I wanted to] change lives. Change the perspective of, of HBCU (historically black college and university) football. Make everyone step up to the plate and do what’s right by these kids,” Sanders added.
The interview also touched on the poverty surrounding the city of Jackson and the recent water crisis that affected them. At one point Sanders mentioned that he could not believe that the facilities were better in Texas high schools than they were in Jackson State.
Jackson State athletic director Ashley Robinson glows in his interview when he talks about ‘Coach Prime’. He says that he is worth so much to the program that he couldn’t put enough zeroes on it! He definitely landed a magnificent coup with the signing of Sanders, which can be seen by the caliber of recruits wanting to go to JSU.
Landing Travis Hunter
Sanders has both his sons, quarterback Shedeur and defensive back Shilo playing for him at JSU, but he made real waves when he landed top recruit Travis Hunter.
Travis Hunter was the number one recruit in the country last year and switched from Florida State to join Sanders at Jackson State, who operate in the FCS, a level below FSU. The uproar was fantastic and it annoyed all the right people. Anyway, Travis was part of the 60 Minutes interview and explained his decision to join JSU.
“Coach Prime [changed my mind],” Hunter said. “He just let me know how big of an impact I can have on the people and that’s one of the things I wanted to do. I wanted to shine a light on, on our people (African Americans) and shine a light on HBCUs.”
Sanders said that Hunter’s decision will mean that others will now think if playing at a HBCU is good enough for a top recruit then it’s good enough for me. That is the kind of disruption Sanders wanted to cause.
Competing with Alabama
Despite having a budget about 15-20 times less than Alabama and Ohio State, JSU is still going neck and neck in recruiting with the big schools. They almost landed a lineman when the final two options he was considering were Alabama and JSU. Ultimately, Bama won out but ‘Coach Prime’ was happy they could compete.
“It makes me feel good because we were right there neck to neck with Alabama,” Sanders said. “And we broke. And I’m hoping a political figure or someone, some billionaire out there saying, you know, what? I’m gonna bet on Prime, man. Let me go help that program, because I just wanna see what it would be like if he had the resources these other schools would have.”
On that note, he did also say if a Power Five school came knocking he would be dumb not to consider the move. However, he said that he would never coach in the NFL because he wants to coach players who play for the love of the game and not the money.
Sanders on winning
It is a thoroughly enjoyable interview and can be found in its entirety here. We will leave you with Coach Prime’s thoughts on winning, which are quite magnificent and top off the interview nicely.
“I gotta win in every facet of life,” Sanders said.”That’s what winning is. That’s our natural odor. We don’t even use cologne (claps). Baby we a winner. We smell like winning around here. When you saw us on the practice field you walked and you… when we first met, you, you could feel that you shook the hand of a winner. You felt that. I know durn well you had to call somebody, say, hey, man, I just met Coach Prime, baby. Something about him, something. He’s magnetic. I’m gonna win. But not only win, I’m gonna dominate. That’s what I do. That’s who I am.”
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