'Let's stop the nonsense'- Stephen A. Smith to Deion Sanders' critics
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00:00 Now that football legend Deion Sanders is coaching the University of Colorado
00:03 Buffaloes through record-breaking victories, Sanders, also known as Coach
00:07 Prime, signed on as head coach last year, revamped a team that last season had 11
00:13 losses, now ranking in the top 20. The University of Colorado announced back in
00:18 April it had already sold out its season tickets for the first time in 27 years.
00:24 Sanders' drive for excellence inspired Nike to produce Buffaloes merchandise
00:28 with shirts that say "Prime" and according to the University, sales are up by just
00:34 819%. At the start of the season, Sanders flipped the team's roster upside down by
00:40 replacing most of its players and welcoming 86 new student-athletes, some
00:44 of whom transferred from historically black colleges and universities. In his
00:48 coaching debut for the Buffaloes, they pulled off a stunning win against
00:51 number 17 ranked team TCU. It was the most-watched season opener in Fox Sports
00:57 history. The following week, the city of Boulder brought in an estimated 18
01:01 million dollars in revenue from the Buffaloes' first season home game, beating
01:06 the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and last week the team smashed an ESPN record by
01:10 drawing in 9.3 million viewers during its double overtime victory against
01:15 Colorado State, making it the network's most-watched late-night college football
01:20 game ever. But Sanders' success didn't come overnight. He coached at Jackson State
01:25 University for three seasons, where his sons also played and eventually followed
01:29 their dad to Boulder, Colorado to play for the Buffaloes. Sanders is one of the
01:33 most versatile athletes in sports history. The now 56-year-old is a retired
01:38 NFL and MLB player, the only athlete to play in both a Super Bowl and a World
01:43 Series game. Back in 1989, he became the first athlete to score a touchdown for
01:48 the Atlanta Falcons and hit a home run for the New York Yankees in the same
01:52 week. But perhaps his biggest impact so far is best explained in an Axios
01:57 piece, which is titled "Coach Prime's Making Colorado Black America's Team."
02:03 The piece references Michigan's men's basketball team, the Fab Five, and how
02:07 they captivated black America and hip-hop culture, just like the Colorado
02:11 Buffaloes are doing right now. Big names like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Snoop Dogg,
02:16 Lil Wayne, LeBron James, and a whole host of NFL superstars praising Coach Prime's
02:21 hard work. And joining me now to discuss all this is legendary broadcaster
02:25 Stephen A. Smith, the host of course of ESPN's First Take and author of
02:29 "Straight Shooter," a memoir of second chances and first takes. Stephen, if you
02:34 said to me six months ago that I would be clearing my Saturday afternoon to
02:38 make sure I was in front of a TV to watch Colorado at Oregon, I would never
02:43 have believed you. What explains all this?
02:47 Prime, Deion Sanders, I mean he's one of one. There's no other way to slice it,
02:53 Michael. I mean the reality is is that when you think about Deion Sanders, he's
02:57 without question the greatest cornerback in the history of the National Football
03:02 League. He was an All-American at Florida State prior to that. He was an
03:05 All-State basketball player when he was in high school. He succeeded on every
03:10 level and then when you take into account his charisma, the way he
03:15 articulates himself, his thoughts, his beliefs, etc., the inspirational impact
03:20 that he has on an abundance of kids, you're talking to somebody that's been a
03:23 friend of his for close to the last quarter century. He and I are extremely
03:27 close and we talk all the time and I know that when he was in this business
03:31 doing color, you know, commentating and what have you, working for the NFL
03:35 Network, working for CBS, being, you know, garnering interest from various other
03:40 networks throughout the years, one of the things that he religiously stipulated
03:45 was that he was going to have time to coach his kids. I'm not talking about
03:48 just his kids, meaning his two sons, Shadon and Shiloh, but others as well.
03:53 The guy loves coaching. He loves having an impact on the lives of young men.
03:58 That's always been what he's been about and he would make sure to carve it out.
04:02 It was just an absolute mission of his and to see him doing what he is doing.
04:07 It's sensational to watch. I'm so happy for him, but I would be lying if I told
04:12 you I was surprised. Wherever he goes, he's going to be able to recruit and I
04:17 know that he knows what he's doing from an X's and O's perspective, but his
04:21 level of patience when it comes to young minds is unrivaled.
04:24 Steven, is it a black thing? I mean, I was kind of bummed when I read that
04:29 Axios piece because I'm a suburban white guy and I'm loving it. I've
04:32 ordered my coach prime T shirt and I'm hoping it's going to show up in time
04:36 for me to slip it on when I sit in front of my TV today.
04:40 Well, I'd say it's a black thing because the reality is that I don't
04:44 see too many folks that are not black that can do what he has been able to do
04:48 to walk into a program that was one in 11 to have 10 scholarship players to
04:53 turn it around and get 86 new players knowing about the existence of the
04:57 transfer portal, knowing the name, image and likeness issue and how that's come
05:02 into fruition and that's coming to the focus. The reality is, is that you've
05:06 got to be able to walk in the living rooms, not just talking to parents, but
05:09 talking to kids and convincing them, hey, this is what we're going to bring
05:12 to the table. Now, I'm not trying to sit up there and throw any shade on
05:15 anybody else. Nick saving is phenomenal. Kirby Smart is phenomenal. Dabble
05:19 Sweeney is phenomenal. There's an abundance of coaches in college
05:22 football, Brian Kelly and various others that are exceptional minds and
05:26 exceptional football minds who have obviously recruited exceptionally well
05:30 and we get all of that. But it's hard to imagine that they could have worn to
05:34 a one in 11 program like Colorado in the Pac 12, which by the way, is on the
05:40 verge of dissolving for crying out loud and do what they've done in their first
05:45 year. So it remains to be seen if this is going to continue. But think about
05:50 the spring game. Georgia is back to back national champions, McConnish back to
05:55 back national champions. And when Deion Sanders arrived in Colorado for spring
05:59 football, it was nationally televised and more people were interested in him
06:05 and that program than they were interested in an S. C. C. Program,
06:09 which is clearly the best conference in college football with the reigning
06:13 defending two time national champions. There was more interest in him and that
06:18 program than they were than there was in the national champion. That's about
06:22 prime time. Deion Sanders. And when you hear people were losing the blackness
06:25 is because you don't see too many black folks in Colorado, but they come now.
06:29 Well, you don't know because I've been, well, you don't see you. You don't see
06:32 too many of the one to punch of having both a black head coach and a black
06:38 quarterback, which historically have been like two of the whitest positions.
06:42 I get that a coach is in a position on the field. Let me ask you this. I I've
06:46 got Colorado in the 21 points. Does the fun end today? I mean, you're a guy who
06:52 knows the X's and O's. What? Yeah, talk to me about that. Oregon. Oregon is
06:57 lethal. Bow. Nix is no joke. They put up points in bunches. Um, there are top
07:02 10 nationally ranked team, not to mention the fact that they see Colorado
07:06 coming now. Colorado has had some issues defensive, you know, period. Uh,
07:10 prime time will tell you times they play like hot garbage on offense when
07:14 they're doing well on office. They play like hot garbage on defense and they
07:17 can't seem to bring it together. But this is one of those situations with
07:20 the exception of opening opening weekend when they upset the national
07:24 runner up in T. C. U. When they with the exception of that, you know, you
07:29 see them coming now. And so when you look at it from that perspective,
07:32 they definitely got their work cut out for them. And then you will see next
07:36 week as well.
07:37 Hey, Steven, is the influence all positive? I know you're tight. You've
07:41 already spoken eloquently in support of Dion Sanders. I told you I'm on this
07:46 train, but you know that there are some who say that the way that he walked in
07:50 that first day and said, Get on the portal and explore your transfer
07:53 operations was just too harsh and they don't like the commercialization and
07:58 open discussion of getting paid good. You would say what to that? What I'd
08:03 say is those people can go to hell. I mean, we got to stop this nonsense. You
08:06 know, college football's been making money hand over foot for decades. All
08:09 right, on the backs of kids that were not being supported. What he did was
08:14 name, image and likeness. You're looking at you doing Sanders, his son,
08:17 who's the star quarterback, and he's worth over 5.1 million right now with
08:21 an I l. Okay, and he's exceeded almost even his father, who's at about 5.5
08:26 million dollars. Okay, we're looking at programs get money. We're looking at
08:29 coaches getting exorbitant amount of money. What? Prime time. Dion Sanders
08:33 walked into Colorado and said, Okay, these are the rules, and we all know
08:36 that I can't give you incremental process progress. I'm prime time.
08:40 They're going to judge me immediately, and if I don't succeed immediately, I'm
08:44 going to be out of it. I'm not going even though I'm back to back Swat
08:48 champions when I was at Jackson State, even though I put HBC. I helped put
08:52 HBC use on the map by giving them the level of notoriety and pub that was
08:56 sorely lacking. People are going to judge me very harshly. This is my
09:00 situation. I'm inheriting a one in 11 program for crying out loud. Okay,
09:04 nobody cares about this program. Nobody's thinking about this program.
09:07 I've got to come here. When now? What is he supposed to do? Serve everybody
09:11 cookies, cookies and milk. Let's stop the nonsense here. You gotta go up in
09:15 there. You gotta recruit. You gotta make sure that you're getting marquee
09:18 dudes to come and play for you, and you've got instilling them a belief
09:21 that this program is something that you could uplift so they can galvanize
09:25 themselves in the troops and draw additional interest. So folks will want
09:29 to come to the University of Colorado because they damn sure wasn't looking
09:33 to come there beforehand. So let's stop it. We all know everybody's getting
09:36 paid. He's saying, Kids, you could get paid to, and he represents that he's
09:40 personified that throughout his career from the time that he was a player to
09:43 now him. I'll tell you, let's stop. I'll tell you what brought what brought it
09:47 home for me is I watched the Johnny football documentary on Netflix. He
09:51 literally built that stadium and to think that, you know, he had to
09:55 surreptitiously go off and do signings for 20 grand when he shouldn't have
09:59 done it. Those folks all should have gotten paid. Steven, when you come back,
10:03 don't hold back. Tell us what you really think next time. Okay, I'll do
10:08 my best. I'll do my best. Thank you, Steven.