Be Like Deion Sanders

EXPECTATIONS, CONNECTION, CULTURE

The most exciting story happening in sports right now is Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders. He’s the new coach of the Colorado Buffalos college football team and in the first two games of the season, he’s already exceeded expectations.

Here’s what people are saying about him:

Behind the sunglasses and jewelry he wears to press conferences, Coach Prime understands the structure it takes to win. And it’s that structure that we as writers can learn from.

Some quick context before we get into it. Deion Sanders is a hall of fame football player. He coached high school after his retirement and before coming to Colorado, he coached at Jackson State, which is an HBCU (Historically Black) institution.

In his three years at Jackson State, Coach Prime turned that program around, brought in more dollars to the program than ever before, and put the team, and HBCU, on the national stage for the first time in history. It was an unprecedented accomplishment.

A lot of pundits questioned whether he could repeat that type of success at Colorado. Unlike Jackson State, The Buffalos are a division one school (top league) playing in one of the top conferences in college football. These are the where pros are made, and many weren’t sure if Deion could succeed in this environment.

So far, they’ve been wrong.

Not only has Deion won his first two games, he’s sold out season passes for the Buffalos and has brought national attention back to the Colorado program for the first time in over twenty years.

Okay, now how did he do all this and what can we learn?

I was watching an episode of The Herd, which is a sports show hosted by Colin Cowherd. His guest was an insider of the Colorado Buffalos and he said what people don’t understand about Deion Sanders is that his expectations are incredibly high.

The Colorado Buffalos only won a single game last season. One game. When Coach Prime got the job, he recruited 86 new players to the team (there are about 100 players on a team). According to this insider, he sat with about twenty of the former players and told them they wouldn’t fit with his current vision of the team. They weren’t good enough. The rest of the players chose to leave. They couldn’t handle the expectations Coach Prime had set.

And that’s the first lesson.