The conversation became noise at a certain point. Not good noise, not bad noise, not inaccurate noise … just noise.
The noise surrounding Deion Sanders just got louder Thursday night after his team’s “too ugly” (according to USA Today) 31-26 win over the FCS darling North Dakota State. A “prime” example that even if, when and how he wins, it won’t be enough to quiet the crowd. In some parts the Deion Sanders hate runs deep.
All week leading up to the game Coach Prime was in the news for his role in Colorado's disciplining a member of the media by cutting off Denver Post columnist Sean Keeler’s right to ask the coach direct questions. Based on what the university felt was Keeler’s constant negative approach to covering Sanders. It was a move that caught hell and had members of the media calling Sanders worse names than Keeler had. He went from “false prophet” and the “Bruce Lee of B.S.” to “hypocrite” “bully” and “Frankenstein.”
Fair.
But here’s the thing about noise: Noise ain’t always fair. At times, especially in this polarizing landscape of sports and the media representatives who cover and report it, noise is selective. Noise chooses sides. And in this case of Deion Sanders vs. The Media, the media does what it often does: it chose itself. And that is often where the fairness ends.
Did Sanders and Colorado overreact? Of course. Did Keeler at times, often enough, cross the line by publicly using his column to take digs and shots at Deion that often seemed little or had nothing to do with Prime’s ability as a first time power conference NCAA coach? No doubt.
Yet, we, the media only wanted Sanders to rise above the fray. Shame. The media has to stop asking Sanders to be the “bigger person” or the “adult” without requesting or requiring the same from one of our own. Were Sanders and the university “petty” in their decision to prevent the columnist from asking direct questions to Sanders during media sessions? Sure. But don’t act like Keeler and the Denver Post weren’t just as petty for both writing and allowing to be published the childish name calling of Sanders over the course of his first season of trying the resurrect a football program sitting on death row. The pettiness, fault, blame and responsibility goes both ways and is unilateral. It’s on the media to act like we know this because we do.
The deeper side to this is why — in a media that is “supposed” to be fair, partial and comprehensive in the direction it leans and does its job — the outside attacks concerning the situation heaved in Coach Prime’s direction?
When Nick Saban, in 1995 inherited a 0-11 squad at Michigan State (eerily similar to the 1-11 program Sanders inherited last season) and went 6-5-1 his first year and 6-6 the next or when he started the 2007 season 3-0 in his first season at Alabama then he lost two games in a row to Georgia and FSU to make his new reality set in, did he experience anything close or similar with a media outlet calling him out of his name on a regular basis? Or during his first years at both schools was he given accountable grace, time and understanding of what it was going to take to turn those programs around? When the reality is Deion Sanders inherited a single-win University of Colorado program last year and slightly elevated it to a 4-8 season with five of those loses being by a single touchdown. But the grace given to him by us has been very different.
Now, if we’re being honest, Saban at times was just as much of an a-hole as a leader of a college football program as Deion can be, just a different type of one. Ask Maria Taylor. But that doesn’t mean that before he started winning national championships that the privilege of being treated differently should be afforded to him by the media who covers him and not someone else.
Is character, outward behavior, braggadocio and ego, part of why Sanders got what most other first time program coaches don’t? Is race and racism woven in this? Are forms of hatred part of it? Is “know your place,” “act a certain way,” “conform and acquiesce accordingly” sitting at the bottom of all of this? Is Deion’s arrogance verses the media’s arrogance the real clash of what’s really going on here? “Yes” would be the answer to all of the above. And we’d all be damn fools if we believed anything else.
When ESPN’s Sam Acho asked Sanders right before Thursday’s game, “Who is Coach Prime?” Sanders' answer said all that needs to be understood, considered, accepted … for this moment: “I don’t think we have time to explain that (laugh). Very complex. But I have a commitment to excellence, I don’t take short cuts, never have in life, and eventually I’m going to win. We just want it to be right now.”
Vince Lombardi once said: “Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence.” Every job. Deion’s job, Sean Keeler’s job, the media’s job. Find excellence, not the low. Because while two wrongs never make anything right, in some cases, especially when it involves the the ongoing engagement between sports and media, two wrongs should always be considered what they are: equal.
