Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022 | 2 a.m.
This is an opinion column.
Some of y’all are out here being really messy. Petty even. Acting like your feelings are hurt. Like your toes are bleeding. Like a scorned boo.
Like he left you.
Let him go. A lot of folks with deep HBCU blood in their veins became sick, in the deepest pit of their stomach, the moment they heard Deion Sanders was contemplating leaving Jackson State to become head coach of the University of Colorado football team. Leaving the historically Black institution after three transformational seasons for a predominantly white institution (PWI) with only a single winning season in 16 years. Leaving the proud Southwest Athletic Conference (SWAC) for a gig in a tepid Power 5 conference that’s still not won a College Football Playoff championship.
I didn’t attend an HBCU, but my mother was a proud Langston grad. I have cousins who attended Spelman and Morehouse. And each year I live in the South, the more I appreciate the passion and purpose of HBCUs and honor the pride embedded in alums.
I get the hurt. Still, let him go.
Sanders did everything you asked — no, more than you dreamed. He built JSU football into a national brand, into a dominating, championship program. He won 26 of 31 games, back-to-back conference titles, and signed a handful of HBCU unicorns, aka five- and four-star recruits.
Sanders created Showtime! Not just for HBCU football, but for college football. JSU games, at home or on the road, were the spot. The place to be — for us, curated by the flamboyant Pro Football Hall of Famer who attracted more light onto a proud Black ecosystem than anyone envisioned.
Anyone except Sanders.
Coach Prime was the rising tide, and HBCUs were lifted.
Now, let him go.
He’s being chastised by some for leaving the “culture” for a check. Leaving when his net worth is a reported $40 million. Sanders’ base annual salary at Colorado will be a reported $5 million, more than 16 times what he made at Jackson State. That’s before a menu of incentives that themselves could dwarf his former salary.
I’ll go out on a limb of any HBCU coach’s family tree and say none would eschew such a move. Not even Alabama State’s Eddie Robinson Jr., who in October famously claimed Sanders “ain’t SWAC,” saying the coach disrespected his team (the Tigers certainly spoiled the Hornets’ homecoming, 26-12) after brushing off Sanders’ hug attempt when the two coaches met at midfield.
“I’m living on the shoulders of the SWAC,” Robinson steamed. “He ain’t SWAC. I’m SWAC, he ain’t SWAC. He’s in the conference, doing a great job, can’t knock that. … I love what he’s doing for the conference. … But you’re not going to come here and disrespect me and my team and my school and then want a bro hug. Shake my hand and get the hell off.
“I pray he don’t get a Power 5 job, so we can play them next year in Jackson. And I pray they put us for their damn homecoming.”
Sorry, Eddie. Now, let him go.
Robinson’s rant fueled most of the messiness surrounding Sanders’ announcement Saturday just after JSU routed Southern 43-24 to win the SWAC title and earn a spot in the HBCU national title game, the Celebration Bowl, in Atlanta. At halftime, he was trolled by the Southern band announcer, and numerous I-told-you-so memes featuring Robinson were shared Sunday like grandma candy in church.
Messy, y’all.
In sharing the news of his departure with players and staff after the game, Sanders said it wasn’t the money (“I’ve never chased a bag, the bag has always chased me.”) but the “opportunity” that lured him. An opportunity not afforded the most iconic, winningest HBCU football coaches. Not afforded even to Grambling State’s Eddie Robinson (no kin to the ASU coach). Nor to Marino “The Godfather” Casem (Alcorn State). Or to Bill Hayes (Winston-Salem State), Archie “The Gunslinger” Cooley (Mississippi State/Arkansas Pine-Bluff), or Rod Broadway (North Carolina Central, Grambling State, North Carolina AT&T).
Not afforded to them and many other HBCU coaches by a sport that’s still not fully shed its discriminatory skin.
Today, I bet those men are proud. Or would be.
The ascension of an HBCU football head coach directly to the same position at a Power 5 school — OK, a PWI, if you wanna still be petty — sets a historic precedent and makes a transformational statement that should shed a long-overdue light on other HBCU coaches.
Sanders is gone yet may still be the rising tide that continues to elevate a culture he’s already lifted.
Roy Johnson is a columnist for al.com.