Coach Deion Prime Sanders talks with his son, Shedeur Sanders, Jackson State University Quarterback ... [+]
Pro Football Hall of Fame member Deion Sanders is leaving his high-profile job as head football coach at Jackson State, a public Historically Black University in Mississippi. He has accepted the head coaching role at the University of Colorado, the school announced Saturday. Sanders will earn more than $5 million per year as head coach of the Buffaloes, according to CBS Sports.
Sanders’ departure is a big deal because attracting someone of his caliber to the head coaching position three years ago was colossal for JSU. It was also a huge grab for sports at HBCUs, an important set of institutions that have long been disadvantaged by systemic resource inequities. These colleges and universities usually cannot afford to attract and pay high-profile head coaches. Because it introduced a replicable shift in the recruitment of talented head coaches to HBCUs, persuading Sanders to bring his talents to JSU in 2020 was arguably more significant than his most recent move.
In his three seasons, “Coach Prime” (as Sanders is affectionately known) helped the Tigers win back-to-back conference championships. They also achieved the University's first-ever undefeated football season this year. His 27-5 record is one of the best winning percentages in Division I football, the NCAA’s highest and most competitive level. He’s leaving for the PAC-12, a power five conference.
Jackson State and its SWAC conference opponents appeared more on ESPN and garnered tremendously more press during his coaching tenure than had been the case in prior eras. JSU wasn’t the only beneficiary of the hype that Coach Prime stimulated. HBCU sports collectively benefited. Now that he’s leaving for a predominantly white university, will HBCUs return to a long, unfortunate history of underappreciation in the landscape of mainstream college football? They don’t have to.
In 2020, ESPN reported that Sanders signed a deal with Jackson State worth $300,000 per year. He also agreed to donate half of his first-year salary to complete the University’s football facility. According to Sports Illustrated, Sanders’ contract obligates him to pay JSU a $300,000 buyout if he leaves before 2024.
In a 2018 USC Race and Equity Center research report, I noted that Black men were only 2.4% of undergraduate students enrolled at universities in the five most competitive athletic conferences (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, and PAC-12), yet they comprised, on average, 55% of football teams across those campuses. Additionally, in a February 2022 Washington Post article, I highlighted the fact that nearly 70% of players in the NFL are Black, but the League had just one Black head coach at the time. These numbers strongly suggest there are Black men with significant player experience who, like Sanders, could easily become high-performing head coaches.
Sanders hadn’t been a college head coach before JSU hired him. But he was a college football All-American who’d enjoyed a successful career in the NFL. Good for Jackson State for having the confidence to believe they could hire such a decorated football expert to lead its program. They didn’t talk themselves out of trying. Other HBCUs should follow JSU’s promising model.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of Black men who amassed tremendous football expertise during their collegiate and professional careers. Like Sanders, some of them might be open to bringing their talents to HBCUs as head coaches. There’s a chance that HBCUs can afford to hire them.
It’s worth acknowledging that being an exceptional player doesn’t necessarily guarantee that someone will be an effective college coach. Jackson State surely understood this when its leaders put their faith in Sanders. Predominantly white universities, as well as NFL teams, often hire young white guys to lead programs despite having little or no head coaching experience.
Sanders’ willingness to accept a head coaching job for $300,000 per year is what I call possibility confirmation. There are quite possibly other Black men who made millions in the NFL to whom being paid an enormous coaching salary is unimportant. “It’s not about a bag, but it is about an opportunity,” Sanders said to his JSU players as he broke the news of his departure to them on Saturday. For some others, being afforded the opportunity to coach young men, most of whom are Black, would be a sufficiently rewarding opportunity, even if the pay is drastically lower than what Power 5 coaches earn.
According to the NCAA Demographics Database, only 8% of head football coaches across all NCAA divisions (excluding HBCUs) are Black. Student-Athletes across all racial groups (including white football players) deserve exposure to a more diverse cadre of head coaches. Just two percent of undergraduates are Black at the university where Sanders is going. Black men comprised nearly 45% of the Colorado football team last academic school year, according to NCAA data. All but three scholarship recipients on JSU’s 2021-22 football team were Black.
Both college and professional football programs need greater demographic alignment – meaning, having the representation of Black head coaches more closely mirror the representation of Black men who play on those teams. This alignment already occurs at HBCUs. It’s longstanding. Maybe, just maybe some other Black hall of famers would be more interested in coaching at places where such demographic alignment (and what I call ‘demographic integrity’) exists.
As the Sanders example shows, recruiting former Black football stars to serve as head coaches may be much less expensive than HBCU leaders presume. Attempting to replicate JSU’s successful approach is certainly worth a try. “What’s the point if they’re going to leave after three seasons,” some might ask. The average tenure of a Division I head football coach is 3.8 years (it’s around four years in the NFL), thus Coach Prime’s three-year stint at Jackson State isn’t at all unusual. Surely, the publicity and exposure that high-profile, yet surprisingly affordable coaches like Sanders would bring will benefit HBCU athletics far beyond the 3-4 years (or whatever length of time) they spend there.
