Deion Sanders, the new head coach of the University of Colorado’s football team, recently thanked Jesus and his supporters after his underdog team beat the No. 17 ranked TCU Horned Frogs to secure an upset win in their debut game of the season. “Thank you, Jesus. I’m so thankful right now,” said Sanders after the win. “This is a blessing. Everybody, Buff Nation who supported us and all the hood that had my back. I thank y’all. God this is good.” The Super Bowl winner and NFL Hall of Famer retired from football and chose to begin coaching at the college level. The win is remarkable for many reasons, one of them being that Colorado had only won one game in their last season and hadn’t scored a top 20 win on the road since 2002.
After Sanders was fired as the head coach, he began reworking the entire team, bringing in 86 new players, one of them being his son Shedeur Sanders who previously played at Jackson State University. Many people doubted Sander’s ability to remodel the team and even began questioning his choice to start his son at quarterback. In the post-game interview, Sanders called out reporters who were against his decision on starting his son as quarterback, pointing out Shedeur’s impressive stats from the game. “Shedeur Sanders? From the HBCU?” he asked a journalist. “The one that played at Jackson last year? The one that you asked me why I’d give him the starting job? Wasn’t that you? You were supposed to be on the other side interviewing them [TCU]. Now what?” Sanders asked. “We had some guys that singled themselves out with their play — a lot of guys you doubted, one of them from an HBCU. I think he had 510 yards passing in a Power 5 football game and he happens to be my son.”
Sanders has continued to fight against the odds in many other ways. In 2018, Sanders spoke with Andscape where he opened up about how a suicide attempt led him to God, in which he has been living a faith-based life ever since. “I don’t believe you can be at your optimum without your faith,” he said. “Sports is sports, it’s a game. My faith is everything. It’s the gas that propels the courage, the truth, keeps me going. It’s the wind, it’s the wings, it’s the air that pumps into my lungs that provokes me to live. Faith is everything.”