Deion Sanders is "A Man With A Plan" and Ready for Year Two at Jackson State University (JSU)

there's a sign behind you that says i was called by god to make a difference what does that mean as it relates to jackson state that means i was called by god himself not a man next to the man but god himself to come here and provoke change now when i say change i mean change i mean come in one way and leave another change i mean think one way and didn't think another i mean change look one way and then look at nothing that's what i mean by changing coming here flat like a dollar bill and come out four quarters i mean change how do you make change well you got to be disruptive with a cause with consistency with a plan people generally are not comfortable with change change just disrupts a whole lot of comfortability and oftentimes you got to be willing to be that guy willing to risk it willing to attempt it willing to secure it to accomplish your goals and i'm more than willing and i'm more than able and i'm more than capable what's the change you want to see i have oh where did i start my brother i could illiterate this thing and start with too it's not just about winning we gonna win it's about making things better for everybody not just jackson state mississippi valley state all corn grabbed me fam you i could keep going for everybody not this ain't just about us this is bigger than that see people think it's just about it ain't just about why would why would you think i just god just called me up to jackson state to make a change no no no no god called me to jackson state hbcu swac college football at this level fcs to make a change this is way bigger than the natural eye could see and fathom what are we talking in terms of change we talking about getting five star guys here no it ain't about the stars it's about not only getting people here but where they're going after they leave here it's about going to the next level it's about producing professionals not just professional football players but professionals period why can't we have a during draft the same day they have the nfl draft that's drafting our kids into fortune 500 companies why can't we have that kind of draft i ain't never heard of that i think it if i could think it didn't mean god impregnated me with it who's gonna help me birth this baby so how do you get it going to jackson state we've already gotten it going in jackson state you come in here with structure with a plan and continuously strategic but yet consistent what's the biggest lesson you learned last year about coaching at this level first and foremost there's some great coaches at this level you just never heard them you never seen them and thank god that that now they've been exposed and they've been seen and been heard that they can really coach it's not a game we participated in this frankly that i didn't see a kid a young man with nfl potential it's not one game like i'm like watching the game say dang now outside i could play that corner got it that left tackle got something special he has a gift they have it man um i i saw some things that that needed to be handled right to be checked needed to be uh stabilized i saw some things on our team i'm glad we had this spring if we didn't have the spring i wouldn't know what i would do because that was a tremendous evaluations evaluation in a gang type environment i loved it i needed it i wouldn't know what to do right now if we hadn't had it i'm so much better now than i was then because of the evaluation that we had because expectations are high not just because jack state been a great program but you got nine sec transfers you had a great recruiting class how do you teach your kids to handle the expectations around here well we didn't recruit them not thinking they could we recruited them because they told us uh we identified the characteristic characteristics that they wanted to go to the next level we're not recruiting guys and signing guys or having guys inside this locker room that don't want it all if you just want to play football this ain't the place for you but if you want to go pro and be a professional and dominate and learn this game within the game and the game of life as well this is the spot for you but if you just want to play football you can do that in parking lot is that your pitch to kids no i don't pitch first and foremost i sit down and tell the truth the unequivocal truth the whole truth is nothing but the truth i'm a straight shooter see most of these parents are my age right or a little bit younger so they know how i get down and they know what i'm saying to them is genuine i'm not promising them nothing but opportunity now the main things that i need at hbcu i need two things i need to make sure these kids have an environment where they lay their head when they close their eyes it's comfortable and they're safe and i need to be able to feed three wonderful square meals a day seems simplistic right seems normal oh you can do that no no it ain't that easy baby it ain't that easy but if we could do that all over the hbc all over swacks all over the fcs we got a chance man is that why is that is that part of the reason you've been so adamant about documenting your first year here now i've been so adamant about documenting my first you're here because i want you to see the journey see it's one thing to hear the story but you don't know the story but when you see the story that's a whole nother thing i want you to get in this car and ride with us through this journey to understand what we're up against to understand what we conquered to understand what we've dominated understand what we endured so you can understand what we have inside of us and this ain't no regular thing that these kids are dealing with they're saying the things that we're dealing with some colleges don't have to deal with it like what you want me to get naked on you know i'm trying to try to be good say for instance when we had the storms um we were without water for quite some time could you imagine that being away from home at a college without water that that's not an indictment on jackson state because the whole city was in that same situation right but how do you deal with it how do you handle it how do you get past it to get through it and get by it now though that can't bring you close together as a team and as a staff and as a unit i don't know what will but it was some tremendous challenging situations that we had to deal with man i was in the pool base you don't see it in the documentary i took a bath in a dirt pool i went in the bathroom and soaked myself down and jumped in the pool and did you know and finished it all i had to take buckets of water scooping that out of the pool to fill my toilet up and that's going to get you two flushes you better handle that flush right because you have to go back down get some water break i'm in the pool probably after a few days the pool you start seeing getting lower and lower because everybody starts saying oh that's how he that's how he's doing it so it was it was tremendous and to think of these kids on campus that's what an adult mind what we had to understand but think about kids not only that we we got uh young young women as trainers as equipment persons what they had to deal with you know some young men don't mind being funky but not a young woman she wants to stay clean and fresh and that that that wasn't easy whatsoever then to be ready for a game that week as well tremendous in your mind um how good is your team this year we better than we were this spring your son is quarterback describe him as a player um he's smart uh you know our attributes here in smart tool fast discipline he's uh he's smart he's tough um fast not not meaning just foot speed but being able to analyze and read the defense and make the proper read i mean he's a disciplined young man whereas his teammates really respect him for the work that he puts in off the field which translates on the field and he has an opportunity shadow has an opportunity to really do something special how have you taught him over the years to handle the sanders name because you know he's the quarterback he got the sanders name the hate is coming he was building on that that's what i mean yeah you can you can't grow up in a a 40 000 house adult don't know how to handle eight please well we know how to uh we know how to deal with that his father has dealt with that in his whole entire life so we don't we don't major on a minor that's a minor part of life we focus on the major what we're majoring in being dominant what we majored in being prepared what we majored in only way we could be confident here is we're prepared and we work our butts off to reach this moment and when we reach this moment why would we be prepared of it so practice or the game becomes like practice and practice is really the game that's how we adapt to things that young man right there has a gift and i cannot wait for the world to see it is that why pressure because we talked about it a lot of times why you never like what is pressure what is russia pressure's a single mama trying to make ends meet father gone somewhere you know she don't know when he coming back precious someone in the hospital are right now fighting for their life pressure's a dope thing shooting up because he's lost all hope and he's feeling that needle in his arm or her arm is going to allow her he or her to escape for just a moment that's pressure that's a game man this has a scoreboard up half the people in the stadium gonna leave half half of them believe sad this is a game that ain't pressure now is that what you taught him in shiloh who's also on the team from the time they started playing yeah but but we control what we can control we don't worry about nothing else we control what we can't control but we prepare to be dominant when did you know shadow was good like to play at this level when shadow was a young man his nickname is grown i mean we call him grown because he he's always acted ahead of his time of his tenure of his age demographic he's always been mature he's always been rock steady um shiloh has a tremendous gift as well shiloh is a little more temperamental shallow is a little more ready to swing on you at point shallow is a little more you know that that that's my cane and eight you know one of them cane and one of them is able all right so i i i love them i can't wait till we see them get down and i can't take my eyes off the game because one is the quarterback and one is the quarterback of the defense playing safety what's it mean for you to have your sons here with you it means a lot for a father to first of all not to just uh be present in their life but to be present in their life um first your daughter just called me just a minute ago to just talk about practice uh we meet every sunday mornings for brunch at the game on saturday or scrimmage on saturday and then i meet with shiloh probably three four hours later and we go to like a a dinner um so i get both of my kids uh i get to see them mature right before my eyes and i get to see them play and i get to father them every once in a while they say okay i need dad now i don't need the coach well they say i i i don't need the coach i need that see we're talking about we talk about the girlfriend sometimes we talk about life we talk about how you handle this and what did you see in that so they they get it all and i'm happy to be here for them in that aspect but it's not only them i have like 110 in the locker room so some of the meetings that i have in that office is tremendous man and i love being in that position because it goes from the spiritual side of it it goes to the from the young women in their lives it goes from the football side of it it goes back to the family members how do they handle it then it goes to the nil aspect of life then it goes back to what if or do you think i could do or do you believe and i'm a straight shooter so i love all the different hats you just in my office you see all the hats i have on because i wear so many hats in their lives but i love it how important is the orange blossom classic the southern heritage classic to putting that jackson state brand out there even though it's out there um jackson state was jackson state before so let's get that straight right um jackson state to be jackson state after us let's get that straight but to have our brand and when i say our brand i'm it's an understanding of the prime brand marry that it takes it to yet another level i'm pretty sure uh southern heritage as well as orange blossom has understood what how we can impregnate thanks expeditiously i love it i have yet to be involved in one of these classics of that statue we've had our own here last year but during the pandemic season everything was diminished but what i hear about the orange blossom and then what i hear about going to memphis to get down i can't wait to to experience it i really care you gotta understand my kids man they've never played in a huge state shallow south carolina but when shadows told me daddy you know we never had a band and trinity dad i never played in front of more than two three four thousand so like these this these crowds are enormous like complaining enough playing by no locker room man they had no locker room when i was in high school i never had some of the stuff so i want to improve everything but i don't complain i just want to prove it two last things did you have a favorite moment from last year the favorite moment from last year the beginning and the end were my favorite moments i can't not i couldn't wait to start but right when uh we weren't able to compete because of covet i was excited because it was this is the beginning of the new era i couldn't wait for that i couldn't wait to get rid of some stuff bring in some stuff it's like going into a new crib man you you carry some stuff or some of that stuff you don't want some of that stuff that don't look good you know it was hidden back in the 70s but right now it ain't that a hit they don't fit the same no more all right so i love it i i love the beginning but i did love the ending now we're we're like we're at the genesis of of the new thing and i cannot wait to display it is there a difference in the feeling that you get as a coach starting the season as opposed to when you're a player that's a great question my brother i'm i'm still amped up hyped to play like i'm playing i'm a different kind of coach you know ain't no regular coach um i feel my guys i feel my coaches i feel the fans i feel the band i feel everything and i see everything and and uh and i love it getting ready to i can't have a direct impact on the gang physically that's the only difference but mentally i can emotionally psychologically i can and that don't start on game day that starts now that starts every day we just want to get two to three percent better every day just imagine if we got two three three two three percent better every day six days a week not seven but seven is the party on the seventh is the party you know i'm cool shoot that's 18 better every week i'm good you got this job eddie george at tennessee state we've talked maybe ray lewis one day maybe ed reed don't forget turn wheatley tyrone whitney and some other he's been a tremendous asset to me do you think this is the next wave of how it's going to happen i'm not going to say that because this isn't just a job occupation you jump into because you have credentials this is something you jump into because how we started this interview because he was called by god you don't want to jump into this thing and you ain't equipped for this ride last time i jumped on something at disney and i want to quit for that ride my kids laughed at me a lot i didn't know he was going to take off backwards we took off in that darn rollercoaster backwards and by the time i got to the end i was sick of the dog i was mad at everybody i said take me home this is one of those rides you don't just jump into this hbcu thinking you finna just soar no no no baby it's faith faith glory to glory it's different levels to this thing and if you ain't in it for the right reasons it will expose you what do you mean you gotta wanna do this you gotta you gotta you gotta embody this you gotta love kids man you got to love the moment of all this you got to wake up in the morning and say gus go get it let's go get it you got to sit here and during the fall in the sleep watching family let me take but oh my goodness i'm gonna film like you gotta want you gotta go to bed with these kids on your mind with the program on your mind what can you come back tomorrow and enhance what could you take to the next level this ain't no time clock that you just punch you in and punch out man it ain't that for the glory it ain't enough glory for for the stories it ain't enough of that this has to be authentic if not it's not gonna be good for you but no one else because there's a whole lot of hiccups in this thing man yeah a whole lot of what is the thing that's keeping more coaches out of or is that opportunity what do you mean more young men let's just take a marshall fault right different one of the smartest football minds i've ever articulated with about the game he was close to one of these opportunities that hbcu can't say which one but he was close all he needs is an opportunity see a lot of guys like that of that standard and that status they're not gonna come and beat your door down because they feel like hey man yeah you know i'm gonna let you know i want it but i'm not gonna beg you for it because of their status and sometimes that that's not selfishness that's not prideful that's like i can help you and i got a lot to offer not only my football knowledge but my resources my connectivities we want to have that practice field that we have right now if it weren't for the resources we want to have those multiple helpments that we have in the uniforms and one for the resources and the connectivity so different places that some of these guys can take your program is phenomenal if i didn't have the connectivity and the resources i couldn't do half the things that i'm doing right now here at jackson state university well i think that's one of the keys that you're able to leverage your relationships in a good way and that if you can get more guys in there because that's what happens that like i went to ohio state that's what happens at bigger power five programs you just have more alumni who have more money they'll have more relationships i'm glad you said that there more money and more relationships but see as a people oftentimes we don't get back to what blessed us because oftentimes we don't think that's how we were blessed we think we were the reason and we don't get back at those other institutions oftentimes they give back to what helped them get to the point where they are right now in life so the giving don't match the living now you also use social media more than most coaches go to have you talked to some of the other hbc coaches hbcu coaches about this is a platform that's that you can use i i'm i'm not built like that my brother like if i'm asked i will you know i'm going to give you every damn resource i have but i'm not going to force it on you or try to pretend like i know more than you i could be tremendously successful in this area if you ask me about it man i'm going i'm gonna give you everything because why god got enough of me and you and him and her that's just the way i get down but i'm not gonna um bombard you with that as if i know more than you that's my gift marketing is my gift from the beginning from the genesis of this thing so i would think that some would want to know how you do it and how you get down to is this where you know we got a different marketing team around here we got that's what we do at a high level and we understand it and we truly get it and this is for our kids before i leave and when i leave or whatever if god asks me to leave i'm still gonna be proud because of the marketability that i sustained so this is for the kids man i want my kids to shine and i'm not talking about my biological tooth i want my kids to shy i really do well see i know you took some criticism last year whether it's veiled or not from other coaches in part and eddie will get some this year because you didn't come a traditional route what is the traditional route well it's supposed to be grad assistant who said that who made up that roof they said that day whoever they is they said you wanna play you wanna supposed to play two sports but we did it they say you weren't supposed to make a million dollars coming out of college because you hadn't played a snap in the nfl but i did it like if they they who is they that have been talking because whoever dated i can't i never get identified day i never meet who they are this is a new day this is a new game this is new age um our routes are expedited now oftentimes we don't have to go through the channels and in the trials and tribulations that our forefathers and our ancestors went through because they they gave us the navigational system for what does 14 years in the nfl account for grant assistant tbe means the best ever what does that account for i could you know me i could be a a a a defensive back coach uh i could have been there a long time ago in the nfl that's not the right i choose i don't want to coach no no no pros that got so much money you can't even talk they can't hear you because of their their bank account i love to impact youth and college students man that that's what i do that's what i've been doing for years how many youth fields we've built in the inner city in dallas several and we're still building sales here now that's just what we do that's how we get down i don't know what tradition is man i respect and i honor and i truly admire tradition but some things uh god may just scream suddenly you always been like that always from the genesis that's what i'm saying even playing two you know tracking baseball and football in florida is that a gift man why would i not exercise my gift because this fool can't do what i do and i'm going to give him the ability to downplay me and talk about me and they say me when he's not equipped to even do what i can do on my bad my worst day no are you gonna believe a critic are you gonna trust god that's the question that you always gotta ask yourself there you go i trust god dog my critics have critics my critter got a critic and you want me to believe him i know i know the quarterback excites you mm-hmm who else on this team excites you i coach his death hold yourself real excites me um i want to win because first of all we have better players i want to win second of all because we have better coaches i want to win third of all because we've united those coaches those players and we're able to get the best out of them and i want to win because we're good now here's the question what is a win for you there you go a win for me ain't like a win for everybody else because we could we just say fans we went undefeated and no one went fro is that a win no one you know yeah during skipping so if several people went pro but we didn't win is that a win i know that ain't win for you there you go no the way we equate wins is totally different i know where the win win is to me i'm not going to tell you where to win i tell you but i'm not going to tell them what a win is me but uh i know exactly what a win is for me and it's not just a win for me this community has to win man the city has to win the youth has to win my youngster has to win academically we got to win it's so many factors in what a win really looks like for me it's unbelievable not knowing you a long time perhaps 25 years a long time i really know you you know why is it that you think people thank you it's all about you and your self-centered they don't look behind uh the veil man they can't get past the crime they can't get past the lights um because if they look hard enough they say you know what i ain't never heard their brother curse they look hard enough they say you know what i heard he'd never chase alcohol in his life they look hard enough they say you know what i don't think he's ever been high or smoked or done anything remotely you know what he's he's a great father but they won't look hard enough if you look hard enough you gonna mess around and find the truth we don't like the truth man we don't like that we like to think what we want to think so we can have a fantasy in our minds when the truth can hit you right in the face and some people don't want the truth man period now one of the things we debate quite often or a little bit you say the talent in the hbcu is just as good as some of the power five yes certain position certain position i go now you're my boy but but i don't know about that certain positions dbs receivers dbs receivers the skill positions are they are i i feel like they really are now where they get us at is with the big fellas offensive line and defensive line and the depth thereof and the quarterbacks that's what a difference of the game the defensive backs i'm telling you there's some defensive backs and uh receivers in the swac that can flat out do it i've seen it i see it on a daily basis i watched watching film the body types the athleticism the being the flexibility on offense defensive lines and the quarterback's knowledge and being able to spin it and not just rpo guy or run first past second guy that's where they get us at is that what you mean in terms of getting changed to increase hbcu football you got to get better training tables you got to get better weight rooms you got to get better at that to make better houses how are we going to get better when you're sleeping like they sleep we ain't living like they living now we're not we're we're not getting the the the studies academically the resources with the tutors and all of this that they're getting and we want to level the playing field we got to level the durham playing field and quit talking about it and be about it it's easy to know what it is we know what it is we got to do it how do you do it though it starts with a plan it starts for the plan and then it starts oh this is good this is good it starts with a plan influenced by man you got to have a plan you got a man to get it done how did alabama change plan and a man think about all these wonderful great programs in our country how did they change it was a plan and a man then the rest is history

Channel: Andscape

Views: 196,299

Keywords: the undefeated, espn, undefeated, the undefeated on espn, HBCU football, Deion Sanders ESPN, deion sanders jackson state, deion sanders, jackson state football, college football, jackson state university, deion sanders highlights, jackson state tigers, college football on espn, deion sanders hbcu, football, jackson state football 2021, espn college football, ncaaf, deion sanders interview, deion sanders coach, nfl, american football, nfl history, nfl highlights, Travis Hunter

Id: 5XfL0Fof2PA

Length: 30min 57sec (1857 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021