Deion Sanders’ Brand of Blackness has Actually Always Been an Affront to White Fragility
Coach Prime has been a bold, in-your-face fixture in the world of sports for decades. And whenever he has failed, white folks who like their Black athletes to be modest, have rejoiced.
Very few Black celebrities have flaunted their Blackness with a grandiose and unapologetic swagger in the public sphere to the extent that Deion Sanders has over the past (nearly) four decades.
Long before he was known as “Coach Prime '' he was Deion ‘Primetime’ Sanders, a once-in-a-generation professional dual-sport phenom who talked a big game, and generally backed it up with his play on both the football field and the baseball diamond.
The sports world first learned of his larger-than-life persona when he was only a brazen kid fresh out of Fort Myers, Florida in the late 80s. Recruited by Bobby Bowden’s storied Florida State University (FSU) football program, the Florida State Seminole version of Deion was an All-American 3-sport athlete that rocked a Jheri curl, multiple gold chains and talked “cash money shit” about his on-field abilities amid a cultural turning point for Black college athletes at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), spawned by a developing relationship between Hip Hop culture, and college and pro sports.
By the time Prime hung up his cleats at FSU, he was one of the most dynamic talents in the history of collegiate sports overall, and one of the sports world’s most flamboyant characters. As a professional, Deion high-stepped in the uniforms of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, and Dallas Cowboys, as well as the Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, and New York Yankees during his Major League Baseball (MLB) career. And though his career in professional baseball was a reputable one, his legacy as a sports icon was primarily formed on the gridiron as a cornerback notorious for shutting down whatever half of the field he was covering on defense, or his ability to turn kickoff returns into long-yard touchdowns, showboating into the end zone.
At his peak, “Primetime” was a hero of white America’s voracious appetite to be entertained by Black athletes when he played for “their teams.” He was also a cocky and classless nigger when he wore an opposing jersey, and those who viewed him as the latter never stopped carrying that disdain for him after he retired from being a professional athlete.
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