Coach Deion Sanders, not Deion or “Prime Time” the two-sport star that built a brand as the baddest and most electrifying football player of his era who was so good that he could play two sports in one day, acknowledges and respects the position he has, where he is and the journey of the people that came before him and those around him.

As SWAC media day prepared to begin streaming online on ESPN3, Sanders could be seen going by the tables of his fellow conference opponents and greeting his coaching peers that he will have to match strategic wits with, as well as the young men on hand to represent their school and team as leaders in their program. 

While Sanders may have gotten 10x as much attention heading into this day over the past several months because of his status and brand he has built while playing professionally, he is serving a greater purpose now as a football coach. It’s the same purpose the other 11 head coaches that stood on stage with him for their group picture have - help young men, primarily African-American men, get an education and use football to create a better life for themselves and/or their family.  Along with that goal of getting an education and using football to achieve dreams, is helping them understand that giving and earning respect starts with respecting oneself. 

As Dr. J. Kenyatta Cavil, co-host of the Dr. Cavil’s Inside the HBCU SportsLab and professor at Texas Southern University shared with me, African-Americans learn the cultural and historical significance of respect through the shared communal experience of different communities across the country that pays respect to professors, preachers, doctors, coaches by the use of the prefix title that is said before their name. Within those communities fraternities, sororities, social and academic organizations, church members all use prefixes like “Brother” and “Sister” as signs of respect that say who you are, and what you are, is important to me. 

Regardless of whether they’ve known each other for years, giving respect to a colleague in a formal setting is given without question because there’s a belief that we cannot expect a person of another race or culture to respect us if we don’t respect each other. 

As a nation, we’ve allowed our a lack of respect for one another to become so rampant and politicized that many journalists, bloggers, social media antagonists have stopped referring to our nation’s leader as President when making comments about them.  It may have started with President George W. Bush, who many people will just call “Dub-ya” or “W”, but it became very clear that many pockets of this country didn’t respect President Obama, the first African-American man to hold the position, so they just called him “Obama.” And the people who didn’t like President Trump during his four years in office, just called him “Trump” in response to hearing people call President Obama, "Obama" for eight years.

As the media circled around this story to pick at what they viewed as either the absurdity of the situation or defending their fellow sports journalist, it most certainly had more to do with the magnetism that comes with the personality and brand that Deion Sanders has built ever since he enrolled at Florida State University in the mid-1980s than the simple disrespect of a request shown by the reporter.  I wonder if those same reporters call their family practitioner “Doc” or “Doctor” or their first name? Would they address the publisher of their newspaper by their first name instead of the professional courtesy of “Mr./Ms.” before their last name?

I can’t speak to how the reporter from the Clarion Ledger was raised, his family or personal views on respect and titles, nor his relationship to/with Alabama's head football coach Nick Saban, who Sanders referenced in the conversation by saying he would not disrespect Saban by simply calling him ‘Nick’. The reporter seemed very pleased when telling Sanders that he does call him ‘Nick,’ and thus proceeded to disregard Sanders’ request and call him ‘Deion’ which promoted Sanders to remove himself from the virtual setting and go into another room do a radio interview with veteran radio voice of Alcorn State sports, Charles Edmond. 

The interview with Edmond goes contrary to reports that Sanders left media day following the exchange with the reporter. In fact, after the radio interview, he did a live television interview with ‘Thee Pregame Show’ Neely and Charles Bishop, which aired as part of the Black College Sports Network’s continuous live coverage of the football media day. 

You may not agree or like all that Coach Sanders has said or done in his short time as the head coach at Jackson State, but as a man of faith and principle, he is making a difference and here for the right reason. It’s clear that his purpose is bigger than just winning games on Saturdays. 

In his own words posted the morning after SWAC Media Day, Sanders posted the following advice on social media, “Respect is something that (you) must demand and stand for. Give respect and honor those that should be respected and if (you) don’t respect them don’t allow your feelings to escalate the situation into something else unhealthy.”

A positive message for young men at Jackson State to grab hold of and carry with them as exhibited by their leader, Coach Deion Sanders.