When Deion Sanders announced he would be leaving Jackson State to coach at Colorado, ESPN’s Bomani Jones offered criticism towards the coach saying that he “sold a dream and then walked out on the dream.”
Sanders fired back at the analyst’s comments when he was featured on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast this week.
“But what was the dream? The dream is that I wanted equality,” Sanders said. “The dream was that I wanted these kids to get the notoriety and get to the NFL; we did that. The dream that we wanted better facilities, and we’re overlooked and underfunded. I obviously established that.”
“The dream was that I believe,” Sanders continued. “I believed that we could win. I believed that we could graduate at a certain rate. I believed we could treat these kids and raise them to be young men; that was the dream. Why did you stop dreaming? I ain’t. The dream continues.”
While Sanders didn’t name Jones specifically, the ESPN analyst quote tweeted the article and noted what Sanders left out in his response.
“when deion points to the shortcomings of jackson state, he never speaks to anything institutional. only hints at corruption and how the school couldn’t get on his level. make of that what you will,” Jones said in part.
Jones’s criticism is in large part sparked by Sanders’s rhetoric while at Jackson State, where he left after three seasons after previously saying he was “called by God” to coach at an HBCU program. Sanders repeatedly said he wanted to “change the perspective of HBCU football”. While it was short-lived, he enjoyed a successful tenure with Jackson State.
Sanders leaves the school after posting a 27–5 record over his three seasons there. This season, the team went undefeated during the regular season for the first time in its history. Sanders earned back-to-back Southwestern Athletic Conference championships and coach of the year awards.
Coach Prime now heads to Colorado, a team that went 1–11 this season, and hasn’t won more than five games in a year since 2016.
