Deion Sanders’ hiring a victory
Jackson State officially presents its new head coach.
Deion Sanders won the press conference because he's been winning press conferences for decades now.
He won it almost as soon as he rolled onto the gym floor in the back seat of a Cadillac Escalade, with a police escort and the Sonic Boom of the South, Jackson State's famous marching band, leading the way.
He won it because he turned this official introduction into something akin to a preacher at a church revival, only he was here to save the soul of Jackson State football.
“I'm foolish enough to believe,” Sanders proclaimed at one point. “Do you believe?”
By the end of his 10-minute speech, seemingly everyone inside Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center was shouting back, “We believe!”
What else would you expect?
It's exactly why Jackson State administrators made the right call making the splashy hire, naming Sanders the school's new head football coach.
It's why this will be good for Jackson State, good for the SWAC, good for HBCUS and, yes, good for us here in Memphis.
Now, every season so long as Sanders is the head coach at Jackson State, we get to experience Prime Time at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. Now there is a new star attraction to promote the Southern Heritage Classic, and there isn't an event
around Memphis that deserves it more.
The annual football game and cultural festival involving Jackson State and Tennessee State hasn't happened as planned two of the past three years. In 2018, the football game was canceled because of a thunderstorm. This year, COVID-19 forced organizers to cancel everything. Not to mention, over the past 20 years, the attacks of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina also have wreaked havoc on one of the city's signature events.
But the Southern Heritage Classic withstood all those setbacks, and all those refunds, and then some. It's scheduled to be held again on Sept. 11, 2021, and its perseverance will be rewarded with one of football's greatest personalities, and maybe even a sellout.
Fred Jones, the founder of the Southern Heritage Classic, said he already can feel the effect. He poked his head into a Whitehaven barber shop this past weekend and almost immediately was bombarded with questions and comments about Sanders.
“He's a Hall of Famer. Everybody knows who he is. He's ‘Prime Time,' that's for sure,” Jones said. “It really adds a celebrity feature to the Classic.”
It's not to say the wow factor of Sanders comes without inherent risk, despite his public pursuits of jobs at places like Florida State and Arkansas.
Anyone who does a Google search of Prime Prep, the charter school Sanders co-founded in Texas, will learn quickly that not everything Prime Time touches turns to gold. Handing the keys of Jackson State football over to someone whose previous educational endeavor is still dealing with pending litigation, let alone someone who has never run a college football program before, involves a certain leap of faith.
But what HBCU wouldn't take that leap once Sanders said he was willing to jump?
This was a no brainer for Jackson State. However clumsily the reports of Sanders' impending hiring were handled at the end of last week, the school's administration deserves credit for pulling this off.
What's the worst that could happen? Jackson State has to go looking for another football coach in a few years because Sanders wasn't ready for the job? Well, Jackson State hasn't finished with an above .500 record since 2013. It hasn't won a SWAC title since 2007.
But now it has a national platform and a national brand. Now, it has one of the greatest NFL players of all time, who has so much charisma he was sponsored by Under Armour, regularly appeared on NFL Network over the past decade and recently began his own podcast with burgeoning sports media company Barstool Sports.
This seems like a good sign that Sanders will, at the very least, be able to bring Jackson State and HBCUS the sort of attention they badly need and deserve.
“We have an opportunity most HBCUS simply do not come across,” Jackson State interim president Thomas Hudson said in his prepared remarks. “One of the most formidable forces in football, Deion Sanders, Coach Prime, is on board to help heal our program, elevate our profile, increase notoriety to JSU, a lot of which you've seen with the coverage leading up to this day.”
So Sanders stepped out of that Escalade, removed his sunglasses and walked on stage wearing a blue blazer with red buttons and a Jackson State patch.
He called Jackson State a “hidden gem” and talked of recruiting future NFL players and increasing enrollment for the entire school. He was equal parts Prime Time and pastor.
He made you believe, whether you were watching in Memphis or Jackson or anywhere else in the country, that this might be remembered as one of the greatest days in Jackson State football history.
So yes, Deion Sanders won the press conference because of course Prime Time, or Coach Prime in this case, won the press conference.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto