Coach Prime Goes to Colorado…
The outrage is valid but misunderstood.
I have nothing against for Coach Prime for leaving Jackson State.
I am happy he gets the well-deserved opportunity to coach in a Power 5 Conference.
He gets top-notch facilities, a substantial raise for himself and his staff, and an opportunity for his son to compete at a higher competition level. He becomes another African-American head football coach at the FBS level that sorely needs one. These opportunities unfortunately do not come around often.
Neither Jeff Saturday nor Trent Dilfer has Deion Sanders’ 26–5 record at the college level. They both got the head coaching jobs at the Indianapolis Colts and the University of Alabama-Birmingham Blazers, respectively. The hire by the University of Colorado was strategic. They needed to revitalize a struggling program and Coach Prime is well-equipped to do just that. If he does well there, he becomes certified as a turnaround artist and the sky is the limit on what head coaching opportunities may come available.
I am also happy that there has been outrage about him leaving. It’s completely justified and needed.
I always thought that his reaction was overblown to Coach Eddie Robinson Jr.’s assertion that “He Ain’t SWAC”.
The truth is if there was anybody who was an embodiment of SWAC Football it was not Deion Sanders, it was Eddie Robinson Jr, coach of the Alabama State football team. He was a 4-year football letterman at Alabama State, who then became the youngest member of the SWAC at 28 years old. He was also drafted into the NFL and ultimately after his playing career and other professional stops came back to coach at his alma mater.
That is no knock against Deion who is arguably the great defensive back to ever play and whose accolades both on and off the field may be too numerous to count. Here are only a few: Multiple-time Super Bowl Champion, NFL Hall of Famer, and one of a few select athletes to have played in Major League Baseball and the National Football League…at the same time.
It’s not that Deion didn’t do anything for Jackson State, he clearly increased exposure and recruited high-level athletes. He also led them to success on the field with 2 SWAC Championships and off the field with a stellar graduation rate for his student-athletes.
Jackson State also did a lot for Deion. Jackson State provided him the opportunity to be a head coach where other schools at the FBS level did not. It was an agreement that we should all strive for: mutually beneficial. The only problem is…he wasn’t there long enough.
His 3 years would have been okay if he did not go on the record multiple times to say that he had a higher calling. The calling was to not only coach JSU but to lift HBCUs as a whole. It may have not been intentional, but some of the remarks came across as dismissive of the work that many individuals have done and are doing to lift HBCUs. Those individuals do not have the cache or the money of a Coach Prime, however.
Coach Prime didn’t bring College Gameday to HBCUs first; Gameday was at Florida A&M 10 years ago. HBCU players were drafted before, during, and will be after Coach Prime tenure at Jackson State. In fact, Shaquille Leonard, one of the best players in the NFL, was drafted out of South Carolina State, an HBCU in the Middle Eastern Athletic Conference.
HBCUs still have a ways to go in improving infrastructure and facilities but there are also advantages to promote which include smaller class sizes, culture, and a family atmosphere to name a few.
The main issue HBCUs have as it relates to athletics is a lack of funding which leads to individuals leaving. The issue goes all the way back to when high-level athletes decided to not attend HBCUs once schools were integrated. For example, there were and are more financial resources at the University of Alabama than at Alabama State University. This resource issue didn’t take 3 years to develop and it won’t take 3 years to fix. To be fair, it is not something that one person can fix. But when you sell yourself as a major part of the solution to push HBCU Athletics; expect some blowback.
It’s not personal, it’s needed to push to remind people that some HBCU fans and alumni have the same expectations for success and excellence hence the slogan: Why not us?
I don’t bemoan anybody making the decision that is the best for them and their family- I am a proud HBCU and PWI graduate as both institutions have helped me grow into the person that I am now but if Deion Sanders- a multimillionaire with that the stated mission of helping HBCUs-cannot stay at Jackson State for a longer period how do we think any other coach will stay if they get offer a similar opportunity? If that is indeed the case, then what is next for these athletic programs?
As an aside, before we say that coaches don’t stay for longer anymore: Pat Fitzgerald has been at Northwestern for 16 years, David Shaw was the coach at Stanford for 12 and Buddy Pugh has been the coach at South Carolina State for 20 years. It’s not common but is possible.
To further improve resources, one item HBCUs have to think about having seamless succession so there’s not a drop-off when people ultimately come and go for a variety of reasons.
It also brings up a discussion point that Bomani Jones alluded to a while back with Deion when he was hired at Jackson State. He questioned if HBCUs should even get into the business of high-level football with all the questionable activities and tactics that take place. He was concerned that the push towards athletics could negatively affect the primary mission of the institutions which is graduating young men and women. I still believe you can do both but it is a tightrope for all schools to balance.
After all, a coach leaving a school for another after winning a conference championship is commonplace at the FBS level and would not garner this much interest.
Thanks for reading!
