FRISCO, Texas – As a player, Deion Sanders wore a variety of uniforms and played in several cities, both in football and baseball.
There’s only one city in which he played professionally in both sports at the same time, though. Since he was drafted No. 5 overall in the 1989 NFL Draft by the Falcons, Atlanta has held a special place in Sanders’ heart.
Now the head football coach at Colorado, Sanders will open this season in Atlanta, as he leads the Buffs into a battle with Georgia Tech on Sept. 3.
A star cornerback for the Falcons for five seasons (1989-1993), as well as an outfielder for Major League Baseball’s Braves from 1991-94, Sanders is thinking more about the Buffs than his own history in Atlanta.
“Letap think about going to Atlanta and handling our business on Thursday night and in front of the whole world, and then that being our stage,” he said during Big 12 media day Tuesday. “We’re going to take one game at a time, man.”
Later on ESPN, Sanders joked, “I got the coaches on curfew, not the kids (in Atlanta).”
Several current players are from Georgia, including quarterback JuJu Lewis, who starred at Carrollton High School — about an hour outside of Atlanta.
“Itap a blessing getting that opportunity to go out there and compete with Georgia Tech,” Lewis said. “I think every game’s important for us, and Georgia Tech’s just the first team on the block, so I think just go out there and get ready to dominate.”
Growing as a coach
Sanders said he has learned quite a bit during his coaching career, which dates back to youth football and includes six seasons as a head coach in the college ranks.
“As a coach, patience,” he said. “Itap taught me tremendous patience. It taught me that a lot of young men want to benefit from the game financially. A lot of young men want to benefit from the game because they love the game. And you got to really understand there are two sides to this coin and make sure you’re flipping these kids on the right side because itap a whole different game.
“Sometimes you can’t get stuck in the old ways. You got to go forward and welcome and invite some of the new-school ways and adapt to them. Thank God I got kids; I got five of them that keep me on my toes, keep me on my game, and keep me hip to whatap coming, and whatap going on right now. So I’m thankful for that.”
Flipping results
In going 3-9 last year, CU lost four times by one score and had two other losses that were close games in the fourth quarter.
Senior safety Ben Finneseth said the Buffs hope to learn from those experiences and win those close games this year.
“In those close-scoring games, you got to know that we have each other’s back,” he said, “and we got to know as a team and a collective unit, we have to be one thought that, ‘We’re not losing this game. Like, thatap not an option.’
“Thatap kind of the thing that we were missing last year, is you get into those moments and itap like you look to your left and to your right and itap like, ‘Do you want to win? Or are you just here to collect the check and move on?’ That was the frustrating part about last year, but I can promise you that is not the way that these guys are operating this year. So, itap going to be exciting.”
