Deion Sanders talks importance of family, education, and Twitter’s reach

Deion Sanders is known as a hall of fame football player who dabbled in baseball and knew how to work the spotlight.

“Prime Time” was the featured speaker at the Sunland Park Derby Gala this past weekend.

Before the gala, he fielded questions from VIPs and ABC-7.

He was asked about how many children he has and he jokingly thanked the person for not asking for their birthdays before talking about the eight children that live in his home – some biological, some not.

When asked about how he has embraced Twitter and how he uses it to interact with his followers, Sanders said he’s been sending out tweets – or the equivalent of them – for 15 years.

“(With Twitter) you can touch more people, you can bless more people, encourage and motivate more people,” Sanders said. “Now, it’s a lifestyle. Like I was tweeting today … ‘what if I could help all the single mothers and fathers? What if I could help them with employment? What if I can make sure those kids can finish up their homework at school so they can spend more time with their family? Those are the types of things I think about and tweet and try to come up with solutions.”

Family togetherness – and communication – is one of the keys for Sanders.

“We don’t communicate anymore,” Sanders said. “You know, by the time your kid gets home, you say, ‘how is school?’ ‘fine.’ ‘Do you have any homework?’ ‘No.’ And they close their door do what they got to do and you do what you got to do.”

“So what I do when I’m with my kids, I take up all the phones. When we sit down to eat – all the phones, give them to me,” Sanders said. “You’ve not going to have two conversations going on at the same time. And we talk and communicate.”

Watch cell phone video from this question and answer session by clicking on the video attached to the top of this story, which includes more on his family and his musically talented son’s interaction with Snoop Dogg.