Deion Sanders ruffled a lot of feathers earlier this week when the Colorado football head coach proclaimed himself as an HBCU grad instead of a Florida State Seminole.
Former Florida State star and NFL quarterback Danny Kanell took issue with Sanders saying that he wasn’t a ‘Nole, noting that he graduated from Talladega College.
“Wow,” Kanell tweeted in response to a video of Sanders answering the question. “The lack of respect for the school that gave him his start is wild. The same school that retired his jersey. The same school that let him be Prime. There is a way to handle this question and this ain’t it.”
Sanders took the time to address Kannell on Twitter.
“My man ain’t Nobody let me be me! I was Him and still is,” Sanders tweeted. “Your jersey only get retired if you’re a Dogg and 1 of the greatest ever and I was. Ain’t nobody give me nothing, I took it and earned it. Stay out of Grown folks business u have no idea what is what. The Truth hurts my man. I got time!”
The former Jackson State head football coach famously played his college football at Tallahasee’s non-HBCU in the 1980s, playing under the legendary Bobby Bowden before embarking on NFL and MLB careers and becoming a household name. Over the years he has represented Florida State in media and even in recruiting battles. But he never got his degree from Florida State, where he reportedly wanted to take over as head football coach.
Instead, Sanders got his degree from Talladega College, a small private HBCU in Alabama. He then went on to become a head coach at Jackson State, leading that program to back-to-back SWAC titles before taking over as head coach at Colorado.
Deion Sanders downplaying his affiliation with Florida State and claiming Talladega received blowback from a lot of Florida State fans, but clearly he’s made his proclamation and he’s not