Deion Sanders<\/a>. \u00a0Every week he would do something spectacular. \u00a0He would run back a punt with pizazz. \u00a0Chase down a speedy back with confidence. \u00a0Make a ridiculous interception or just put a top ranked receiver on the back of a milk carton. \u00a0 Hey, \u00a0maybe playing cornerback isn’t that bad I began to think.<\/p>\nBy 1988, \u00a0I became married to the idea of playing cornerback. \u00a0 Besides, \u00a0most coaches that saw me thought that I would be good at it. \u00a0By now, \u00a0I had made my way out to California to finish my high school years. \u00a0I did bring that Florida \/ Prime Time swag with me and while I was still playing running back, \u00a0I was also playing corner too. \u00a0 Running back was fun but I wanted to be Prime Time. \u00a0So out came the head band around the neck. \u00a0I couldn’t high step because it was a penalty but I would sneak one in every now and then. \u00a0In a game against our cross town rivals, \u00a0I broke into the open field on a kickoff return and raised the ball up over my head for the last 35 yards on my way to the end zone. \u00a0It took every ounce of will power not to high step. One of the assistant coaches met me on my way back to the sidelines. “Don’t you ever hold the ball up over your head like that again,” he screamed while circulating through different shades of red. \u00a0Being so full of Prime Time confidence, \u00a0my only thought was “he said the word ‘again” so he knows I’m going to be scoring a lot”. \u00a0 It was the Prime Time talking. \u00a0 From that point on every time I scored, \u00a0I touched the ball down in the back of the end zone just to give me some unique style like Neon Deon.<\/p>\n
I took my act to college when I signed with Long Beach St. \u00a0I arrived on campus ready to play a bunch as a freshman because that’s what Deion did. \u00a0It made me work hard, play hard and guess what? \u00a0I was playing a bunch as a freshman and started a number of games. \u00a0By my second year, \u00a0Long Beach St. was not big enough for the star I thought I was. \u00a0So I wanted to transfer. \u00a0I wanted to be on T.V., \u00a0like Prime. \u00a0I wanted to be seen. \u00a0So what did I do? \u00a0I called Florida St. University and told them I wanted to transfer. \u00a0I sent my highlight tape and everything. \u00a0I informed Hall of Famer Willie Brown who was the head coach at the time and after trying to talk me out of it, \u00a0he asked me where I wanted to go. \u00a0I told him Florida St. \u00a0 \u00a0The next day at practice, \u00a0Brown ordered up seven consecutive go routes by wide receivers against me. \u00a0They caught the first one and the whole team starting doing the Tomahawk chop mocking me. \u00a0The next six passes were all incomplete and one was picked off. \u00a0I proved my point and I was thrilled.<\/p>\n
As fate would have it, \u00a0I ended up going to the University of Miami when Long Beach St. dropped football and even though I was playing for Prime Time’s arch nemesis, \u00a0I was thrilled to be a Cane. \u00a0That still did not stop me from playing with Prime’s pizazz and working hard to reach his level. \u00a0I had the opportunity to watch him practice on our University of Miami practice field when the 49ers were preparing for their Super Bowl vs. the San Diego Chargers in 1995. \u00a0I was stunned by his work ethic. \u00a0Nobody worked harder than Jerry Rice but the second hardest working guy I saw on that practice field was none other than Prime Time. \u00a0I thought it was all about his 4.21 forty but that day I learned that “success is not an accident” and “talent has it’s limits, work ethic will make you the best.”<\/p>\n
All along the way, \u00a0wanting to be like prime time made me work hard on my skills at the cornerback position. \u00a0I can imagine that this is the case for 1,000’s of youngsters that have come behind this legendary figure in the game. \u00a0It’s only fitting that he be inducted into the Hall of Fame today as a first balloter. \u00a0He truly changed the game and continues to have an impact even after he has retired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Chad I think you should play cornerback.” \u00a0Those words from a childhood friend of mine in 1986 brought<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":3808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-2038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-deion-sanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}