Deion Sanders vows to make a splash at Colorado after he took his talents there following three successful years at Jackson State. Sanders made headlines in recent years for helping revitalize a much smaller football program at Jackson State University, an HBCU.
Sanders spent three seasons at Jackson State and dominated the college football scene with a 27-5 record. He moves up to the highest level of NCAA football by joining Colorado in the Pac-12 Conference.
Everybody has had their opinion about it, and that includes Jemele Hill.
Hill joined “The Le Batard Show” on Wednesday to discuss Deion Sanders’ hiring at the University of Colorado and discussed both sides of people being mad and excited.
“I don’t blame people who want to celebrate Deion Sanders for moving on to the next level, for getting an opportunity that by the way never happens to head coach that coach Black college football,” Hill said. “You never see Power 5 institutions come and raid the coaching talent at HBCUs. It does not happen.
“There’s some reasons to celebrate him getting the opportunity, but on the other side of it, yes, people are going to be hurt because of what Historically Black Colleges mean, how they’re trying to build and because there’s a difference sense of community at a Black college than there is at other institutions.
“There’s room, honestly, for both feelings, for both celebration and hurt.”
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Her response is nothing compared to what her former ESPN colleague Bomani Jones said on CNN this week. He accused him of “selling out” on the promises to build up HBCUs which he made when he was hired at JSU.
“Well, I wouldn’t have come in in the first place and said that God sent me here to fix HBCUs. And God decided that in the middle of it you were supposed to leave?” Jones said. “It’s like I’ve said, maybe God wants 10 percent of five mil and not 10 percent of 375 (thousand). If God could do math, I could understand why it is.
“He sold a dream and then walked out on the dream. People have a right to be critical of that. I also would have taken the job at Colorado. It’s not a judgment of the fact that he took the job. But this is not in line with what he told us all these years.”
Sanders went 27-5 at Jackson State and won back-to-back SWAC titles in his first college coaching gig. He reportedly signed a five-year deal worth $29.5 million plus incentives at Colorado.
Although he signed a huge deal, it was later revealed by the Athletic Director that the school doesn’t actually have the money yet to pay him. It shouldn’t be a cause for concern as expect to have that money fairly soon.
