Sports Illustrated Names Deion Sanders Its 2023 Sportsperson of the Year

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Deion Sanders News: Colorado Coach Named Sportsperson of the Year

Deion Sanders’ first season as the University of Colorado football coach ended with six straight losses, but the accolades keep piling up for “Coach Prime.” Sports Illustrated named Sanders, 56, its 2023 Sportsperson of the Year for his efforts in rebuilding the Buffaloes program and building excitement around the school and sport. According to the magazine, Colorado played in five of the season’s 13 most-watched college football games through November, and every home game at Folsom Field sold out for the first time in school history.

Colorado didn’t qualify for a bowl game, but fans can soon relive the highs and lows of Sanders’ debut season. Season 2 of the Amazon Prime documentary series Coach Prime follows the team after Sanders’ arrival and streams on December 7.

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Who Is Deion Sanders?

Deion Sanders, one of the most versatile professional athletes of the modern era, is a retired football and baseball star. He was drafted by the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons in 1989, and he also signed on to play baseball with MLB’s New York Yankees. He became the only athlete ever to hit a home run and score a touchdown across the two major leagues in the same seven-day period. He is also the only athlete to ever compete in the World Series and a Super Bowl. After retiring from professional sports, Sanders—known by his nickname “Prime Time”—became a television analyst before making his mark as a football coach. He currently is the head coach of the University of Colorado’s football program.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Deion Luwynn Sanders
BORN: August 9, 1967
BIRTHPLACE: Fort Myers, Florida
SPOUSES: Carolyn Chambers (1989-1998) and Pilar Biggers-Sanders (1999-2013)
CHILDREN: Deiondra, Deion Jr., Shilo, Shedeur, and Shelomi
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo

Early Life and College

Deion Luwynn Sanders was born August 9, 1967, in Fort Myers, Florida. His parents divorced when he was still a toddler. His father, Mims Sanders, battled drug abuse throughout his life and died in 1993 from a brain tumor. His mother, Connie, later married Willie Knight, who became Deion’s stepfather.

By the age of 8, Deion was competing in organized baseball and football. At North Fort Myers High School, Sanders was all-state in football, baseball, and basketball. On the football field, he played both cornerback and quarterback. On the basketball court, he could score with ease. After one particularly hot night of shooting that saw Sanders score 30 points, a friend gave him his “Prime Time” moniker that’s stuck ever since.

For college, Sanders elected not to venture too far and enrolled at Florida State University, leading the Seminoles baseball club to the College World Series, and the football team to the Sugar Bowl. In college, Sanders dropped basketball, choosing instead to become just a two-sport athlete. But the experiment didn’t last long, and Deion soon found himself on the school’s track team, helping it win a conference championship.

Sanders finished his career at Florida State as a two-time football All American with 14 interceptions and a 1988 Jim Thorpe Award win for top defensive back. He was selected fifth overall by the Atlanta Falcons in the 1989 NFL draft. At the time, the thinking was that Sanders would concentrate solely on football, but “Neon Deion” as he was sometimes called had other things in mind.

Baseball Career

Sanders signed on to play with the New York Yankees, playing the outfield in the summer of 1989 for the franchise’s Triple-A club in Columbus, Ohio. When he was called up to the parent club, he hit his first home run against Seattle on September 5. That same week, after a protracted contract negotiation period, Sanders and the Falcons agreed on a four-year, $4.4 million deal. Three days after inking the deal, he justified the big money by running back his first punt for a score, making him the only athlete ever to hit a home run and get a touchdown in the same seven-day period.

But the ease with which Sanders turned himself into an elite football player wasn’t there for him on the baseball diamond. His big personality clashed with the game’s more conservative personality. He got into an on-the-field tussle with Carlton Fisk, one of the game’s great catchers. He then dumped a bucket of ice water on Tim McCarver’s head on camera out of revenge for comments the television broadcaster made about him.

It didn’t help that Sanders struggled at the plate. Following the 1990 season, in which he hit just.171 for the Yankees, Deion was released. He found a new home with the Atlanta Braves, experiencing a bit more success. The team reached the World Series, where Sanders hit.533. In the 1992 season, he hit.304 with 14 steals.

His best season came in 1997 with the Cincinnati Reds, which saw Sanders tally 127 hits and steal 56 bases. After sitting out the next few seasons, Sanders returned to baseball and the Reds in 2001 for one final year, playing 32 games and hitting a disappointing.173.

Football Career

Football, however, was another matter. After five seasons with the Falcons, Sanders signed a one-year deal with the San Francisco 49ers in 1994. For his new team, Deion tied a franchise record with three interception returns for touchdowns, collected Defensive Player of the Year honors, and led the club to a Super Bowl title. He continues to be the only athlete to ever compete in World Series and a Super Bowl.

But his time with San Francisco was short. That offseason, he signed a new seven-year contract worth $35 million with the Dallas Cowboys. Just as he’d done the year before with the 49ers, Sanders led his team to a Super Bowl win. The next season Sanders made history when he played both wide receiver and defensive back, the first NFL player to do that in nearly four decades. For the season, he nabbed 36 passes for 475 yards.

While further championships never arose for Sanders, he continued to force opposing quarterbacks to avoid his side of the field. After his release from the Cowboys in 2000, Sanders signed a new deal with the Washington Redskins (now the Commanders). He collected four more interceptions that year, but at the end of the season, Sanders retired and headed upstairs to the comfortable confines of the television booth.

TV Personality and Analyst

For the next two NFL seasons, Sanders added his brash analysis to CBS’ NFL Today pregame show. But when the network balked at Sanders’ insistence that it double his $1 million annual salary, he came out of retirement, signing on with the Baltimore Ravens. Sanders ended up playing two years with the club, collecting five interceptions during that time to bring his career total to 53.

Sanders returned to TV and spent 14 years as an analyst for NFL Network, appearing on its broadcasts of Thursday Night Football and various studio shows.

In 2008, Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love, a reality show that documented the life of Sanders, his second wife Pilar, and their kids in small-town Texas premiered. The show lasted only one season on the Oxygen network.

Coaching Career: Jackson State and Colorado

As Sanders continued to serve as an NFL analyst on television, he also started coaching.

Sanders joined the staff for the annual Under Armour All-America Game, featuring some of the top high school recruits in the country, starting in 2012. Five years later, Sanders became the offensive coordinator at Trinity Christian-Cedar Hill, the Dallas-area high school his sons Shilo and Shedeur both attended. The Tigers won three-straight Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools titles and had a 42-3 during Sanders’ tenure.

Then in 2020, Jackson State University—home to one of the NCAA’s premier HBCU football programs—hired Sanders to become its head football coach. His debut didn’t come until February 21, 2021, as the Southwestern Athletic Conference played a spring season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the game was a 53-0 romp over Edward Waters and put the team on the map nationally. The next season, Sanders was named the FCS National Coach of the Year after leading Jackson State to 11 wins, a conference championship, and an appearance in the Celebration Bowl. He was back to coaching his sons, too; Shedeur was the quarterback, throwing for 30 touchdowns.

After a 12-win season in 2022, Sanders earned a promotion to the NCAA Bowl Subdivision after being named the head coach at the University of Colorado that December. The Buffaloes were reeling after a one-win season, and athletic officials hoped Sanders could reinvigorate the program. “This is my job, and my occupation and my business, and my dream to bring you back to where you know you should belong,” Sanders said in his introductory address. “All you want is an opportunity to win, to compete, to dominate... and darn it, I’m going to give you that.”

More than 50 Colorado players entered the transfer portal following Sanders’ hiring, as Coach Prime completely rebuilt the team. A number of his players from Jackson State, including sons Shedeur and Shilo, followed him to Boulder. All the turnover immediately paid off, as Colorado began the 2023 season with an upset win over ranked TCU followed by two more victories. Sanders and his team were featured on the season premiere of the CBS news program 60 Minutes in mid-September and in a Time Magazine profile in October.

Following this early success, Colorado struggled the rest of the season and lost eight of its final nine games to finish with a 4-8 record. Still, Sanders’ impact on the program and college football led Sports Illustrated to name him the 2023 Sportsperson of the Year. Season 2 of the Amazon Prime docuseries Coach Prime focuses on Sanders’ first season leading the Buffaloes.

Personal Life: Ex-Fianceé, Ex-Wives, Kids, and More

Twice divorced, Sanders shares five children with his ex-wives.

Sanders married Carolyn Chambers in 1989, and the couple welcomed two children: a daughter named Deiondra in April 1992 and a son, Deion Jr., in December 1993. The younger Deion played three football seasons at Southern Methodist University and, in 2016, launched a clothing line called Well Off.

Sanders and Chambers divorced in 1998, and he married his second wife, actor Pilar Biggers, soon after in 1999. They have three children together: sons Shilo and Shedeur in February 2000 and February 2002, respectively, and a daughter, Shelomi, in December 2003. A decade after their daughter was born, Sanders and Biggers finalized their divorce.

Shilo was offered a football scholarship at Florida State, his father’s alma mater, but instead played for South Carolina for two seasons. He has since followed Deion to both Jackson State and Colorado. Shedeur is currently the starting quarterback at Colorado.

Shelomi is a talented basketball player who played one season at Jackson State before transferring to Colorado like her brothers.

In 2012, Sanders met Tracey Edmonds, a producer and former TV journalist, at a film premiere. They became engaged in February 2019 and remained together as Sanders established himself as a college football coach. But in December 2023, the couple announced they had broken off their engagement and ended their romantic relationship. “We have mutually decided that it is best for us to move forward in life AS FRIENDS and have made this decision with love in our hearts, respect for each other, and appreciation for the time we’ve shared together,” the couple wrote in a joint post on Edmonds’ Instagram page.

Sanders is a devout Christian and leaned on his faith following a suicide attempt in 1997. With his first marriage crumbling, Sanders drove his car off an embankment in Cincinnati, where he was playing baseball for the Reds. “I ran the car off the cliff, and it was like a 40-, 30-foot drop. The car went down and hit, and there wasn’t a scratch on me or the car,” he said in 1998. “I was just empty. I tried cars, jewelry, clothes, women, money. Everything. Nothing could fulfill me.”

Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or self-harming behaviors, call or text 988 to get help from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Deion Sanders Net Worth

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Sanders earned just under $59 million as a professional athlete and is now making just under $6 million per year at Colorado. His total net worth is an estimated $45 million.

Quotes

• I never wanted to be mediocre at anything. I wanted to be the best.

• I’m married to football; baseball is my girlfriend.

• It’s gonna be a lot of zeroes in [my first contract]. You gonna think it’s alphabet soup or something, all those zeroes in there.

• Confidence is my natural odor.

• People say there’s no I in team. Well, there’s not. But there’s an I in win.

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