Deion Sanders has navigated adversity in his life as a player and most recently as a football coach at Jackson State. But nothing caught the attention of the Pro Football Hall of Famer like the moment he found out that he needed surgery to remove two toes on his left foot following a bout with life-threatening blood clots.
While it has been more than 15 months since Sanders entered the hospital for nine surgeries that included eight in one month during the 2021 JSU football season, he showed footage of his amputated foot and scarred leg in a recent episode of Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast.
Sanders was hospitalized in September 2021 and missed three of JSU’s games that season—against Bethune Cookman, Mississippi Valley and Texas Southern—before returning to the sideline in Baton Rouge, La., in a motorized scooter when the Tigers defeated Southern, 21-17.
After Sharpe delivered Sanders a personalized gift, Sanders revealed that his most recent surgery a year ago stemmed from previous turf toe injuries during his playing days in the NFL. As a result of playing through pain like most football players do, Sanders’s foot had been dislocated for nearly two decades.
Following surgery and returning to the sideline last season, a new normal began for Sanders, one in which his trainer massages his left foot and leg “two to three times a day” to ensure he keeps the blood circulating in those body parts.
“Like I can make it through three quarters of a game, but after that, I am on meds and everything,” Sanders told Sharpe. “I am limping.”
Sanders was also taking nearly 30 pills a day to now taking seven per day from the surgery, according to the video. But even as the two Pro Football Hall of Famers discussed the situation, Sharpe delivered some jokes about his friend’s foot on the episode, sharing that Sanders would likely not wear “flip flops” again and that “his homeboy is going to be eight toes down” for his friends.
Sanders recently finished his last game at JSU when North Carolina Central defeated the Tigers, 41-34, in the 2022 Celebration Bowl. The 55-year-old has now focused all of his attention on being Colorado’s new football coach, securing his coaching staff and landing top recruits in the early signing period on Wednesday.
