NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is the new head football coach at Jackson State
“Prime Time” is back.
Deion Sanders, the NFL Hall of Fame defensive back, is returning to the sidelines, this time as the head coach of Jackson State University’s football program.
Sanders, 53, made the announcement on his podcast, “21st & Prime.”
“A lot of people are going to say, ‘Why?'” Sanders said. “But honestly, man, I’ve been offered pro jobs, so people know. I could be an assistant in any college, or a head coach in any college, but at such a time as this, God called me to Jackson State and me to these men.”
Sanders is now the offensive coordinator at Trinity Christian School near Dallas.
Jackson State, a historically black college that plays in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, hasn’t had a winning season since 2013.
“It’s very big for Jackson State University,” the school’s athletics director Ashley Robinson said on the podcast, “not only for Jackson State University, this is very big for the country right now, very big for the state of Mississippi. To ‘Coach Prime,’ Jackson State University — a blue blood program full of Hall of Famers — it’s just a great time.”
Jackson State is set to play a spring season, and an official announcement is expected to come from the school on Monday.
Sanders played 14 seasons in the NFL and won two Super Bowls. He was an eight-time Pro Bowler, six-time First Team All-Pro and he won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1994. Sanders also played in Major League Baseball, with five teams for nine seasons.
