JACKSON, Miss. — On a Saturday afternoon, in a homecoming game that was draining emotionally and physically, members of the Alabama State football team found a burst of adrenaline when the clock reached zeroes and a victory over host Jackson State was complete.
The Hornets sprinted to midfield at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium and mockingly waved goodbye to the home crowd, savoring their payback to a Jackson State team that ruined their homecoming the previous year. It was all good-natured pettiness until a player grabbed a giant ASU flag and pretended to plant it on the Jackson State logo.
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Suddenly, things got serious. Jackson State players walked toward midfield where chests were expanded and words were exchanged. But it was over quickly. Coaches and law enforcement guided the teams to their respective locker rooms, but not before a few Hornets shot a final taunt at the Jackson State faithful.
“Where’s Deion?”
“Y’all need Prime.”
“Call Prime.”
The reference was to Deion Sanders — Coach Prime as he likes to be called — the charismatic figure who led the Tigers to 27 victories, back-to-back Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) titles and consecutive Celebration Bowl appearances during his three seasons in Jackson. He departed for the University of Colorado in December, but the fact that his name was still on the lips of Alabama State players nearly a year later confirmed his presence is still being felt within the Jackson State program.
“Deion did a lot of good for the SWAC and a lot of good for Jackson State, but he probably did a little (of) bad, too,” said Alabama State coach Eddie Robinson Jr., who had a postgame dust-up with Sanders last year after the Tigers spoiled their homecoming. “There are some things he could have done better; I’m sure he would probably say that, too.
“In the big picture, I think he kind of benefited the conference more than he hurt it. But now with (JSU) being the defending champ, everybody wants to play them hard and try to beat them. That’s just how it goes.”
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Opponents have long memories, and it likely will take at least a full season for them to fully purge the memory of Sanders, whose teams went undefeated in conference play his final two seasons. In the meantime, current JSU players and coaches are being asked to cash the checks written by Sanders’ bravado and swagger.
“It’s a huge bullseye on our back each and every week,” JSU coach T.C. Taylor said after the homecoming loss. “This was a get-back game for (Alabama State). They wanted to come back and return the favor, and it’s my job to get our guys ready to play. I just didn’t have this team ready to play. I’ve got to be better, but it is what it is.”
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It’s one thing to view the Deion experience through the eyes of an opponent, but the more telling perspective is from those associated with the program, not only in terms of his arrival but also his departure. The Athletic attended JSU’s homecoming week to take the temperature of various segments of the fan base.
The takeaway can best be described in two words: It’s complicated.
The first thing that needs to be acknowledged is that the Jackson State community does not sit around talking about Sanders. They moved on the moment he left town — not because they feel some kind way, but because that’s what they do.
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The program, in their eyes, is bigger than one man. Always has been, always will be. Take a stroll through the athletic center that Sanders helped design, and there are no pictures of him hanging prominently.
It’s almost as if he were never there — striking considering he seemed to be everywhere during his three seasons. If he wasn’t doing radio shows or podcasts, he was being featured on social media or sitting down with national TV crews. The power of his personality was so great that it attracted “Good Morning America,” “College GameDay,” and “60 Minutes.”
Many locals took it for what it was: a moment in time. They knew they were on borrowed time with Sanders, who admitted early he would listen if bigger programs called. Colorado did that, and Sanders bolted.
The coach
An adage in sports involves never wanting to be the man who follows “the man.” It’s one thing to replace someone who struggled or failed, but it’s another to succeed someone who was wildly successful, as Sanders was in his three seasons. He went 23-3 in his final two seasons at JSU.
Taylor, an assistant on those squads, understood the challenge when he was promoted to the captain’s chair. It was his dream job, and there was no way he would turn it down. He grew up roughly an hour outside of Jackson and attended his first JSU game when he was in elementary school.
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The particulars of that actual day are fuzzy, but not the feeling. You don’t forget that type of energy and pageantry. It captivated him.
“It blew me away,” Taylor said. “To be honest, I knew where I was going to go to school at that very moment. It was a no-brainer; I wanted to go to Jackson State. I’ll put that atmosphere up against any program in the country.”
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He played football for the Tigers, arriving on campus as a quarterback but transitioning to wide receiver for his final two seasons. He is, as the locals like to say, true blue, one of their own, someone whose motives are indisputable.
But the significance of the homegrown angle is directly tied to wins and losses. Taylor understands this.
“It just makes me prepare harder,” he said. “The expectation I have for myself and my coaches, my players, anybody that’s in this building, is that we have to win. I tell them all the time: I get it. I grew up in it. I played in it. Mediocrity is not OK. The city of Jackson expects (wins) on a weekly basis, and that’s what we’re going to try to give them. We can’t afford to have bad games.”
Taylor is the antithesis of Sanders from a personality perspective. Cameras and microphones adore Coach Prime, and he is a master of giving them what they want. Taylor prefers to move on the spotlight’s edge. He is personable, laid back.
When the full squad assembled for the first time last summer, he made a point of reminding himself that he had to be himself — and not Coach Prime. Players tend to have a great detector when it involves authenticity, and the 25 returning players would have instantly noticed if Taylor tried to be someone else.
“If I was trying to be (Sanders), I couldn’t be as good as I was going to be,” Taylor said. “I don’t care about the cameras and stuff like that. I’m not knocking it, but it’s not my way of doing things. My players have grasped that, and they do a good job with it. A lot of these guys have been around for a couple of years. They’ve known me, so I can’t try to be (the coach who) just left.
“I’ve got to be what they’ve seen over the last couple of years.”
The comparisons to and questions about Sanders will subside at some point, but until then, Taylor accepts it all. He is patient and gracious when asked about his predecessor.
“You can’t just ignore what he did while he was here,” Taylor said of Sanders. “You can’t ignore two Celebration Bowl appearances, that his son (quarterback Shedeur Sanders) was the (SWAC) Offensive Player of the Year here. The guy came in and did a great job. A lot of the media attention that we’re drawing, it’s because of Deion Sanders. You can’t just write off the three seasons we had while he was here.”
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Sanders didn’t do Taylor any favors when he took nine of JSU’s best players with him to Colorado, including Shedeur, one of the country’s top players; cornerback-wideout Travis Hunter, a five-star recruit labeled a generational talent coming out of high school; running back Sy’veon Wilkerson, who was coming off a 1,152-yard, nine-touchdown rushing season; and safety Shilo Sanders, another Sanders son who leads the defense’s back end.
The roster turnover likely has been a factor in the Tigers (5-3) losing as many games in two months as they did in the last two years under Sanders, but Taylor refuses to use it as a crutch.
“The groundwork has been set the last couple of years,” he said. “These fans expect us to win, and these players expect us to win. That’s the way we prepared from training camp throughout the summer. We wanted to come out here and be dominant. We know that teams are going to play their best when we play them.
“We’re Jackson State, and we expect to win.”
The alumnus
It is the night before the Alabama State game, and Charles Epps, a 72-year-old graduate of JSU, is dining with seven others at a local restaurant. They settle in a back corner where two tables are pushed together to accommodate four generations of his family.
He orders a bowl of gumbo and takes a couple spoonfuls before setting it aside to chew on a question that’s much meatier: How is Sanders remembered by locals?
“He deserves a lot of credit for what he accomplished,” said Epps, a member of JSU’s Class of 1974. “But he did not put us on the map. Jackson State has a long and rich history that started well before him.”
Epps’ mother, Mary Epps Tillman, nods in agreement from across the table. Tillman, who turns 91 years old on Halloween, has been watching Tigers football longer than anyone in the group, and her ties to the university run deep. She not only gave birth to Epps at the on-campus health center — the university, which was known as Jackson College at the time, served as the primary medical facility for local Black people before desegregation — but also saw some of the greatest players in football history come through the school.
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Lem Barney, Robert Brazile, Jackie Slater and Walter Payton all are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, tying Jackson State with Grambling, Morgan State and South Carolina State for most HBCU players with busts in Canton, Ohio. She also witnessed JSU’s 28-game conference win streak under legendary coach W.C. Gorden, who is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
“It didn’t start with him,” she said of Sanders.
The four JSU alums around the table echoed their agreement.
“That’s right.”
“Tell ’em.”
There is no animosity in their voices. They compliment Sanders for putting the program back on top after failing to post a winning record in the six seasons before he arrived, and they wish him continued success at Colorado.
If there is an overriding disappointment among them, it is their wish that Sanders had done more to not only highlight the program’s rich tradition and distinguished past, but also dispel the negative portrayal of their city by the national media.
Following Sanders’ departure, his oldest daughter, Deiondra, publicly complained on a podcast about her family’s safety and erroneously said there were killings every few months on campus, a claim for which she later apologized. Sanders himself fed the narrative after arriving in Boulder, joking to the media that he was in town four weeks before he saw a police officer.
Perhaps the most hurtful moment came during a “60 Minutes” feature of Sanders, where many in Jackson felt the show highlighted the beauty of Boulder and the eyesores of Jackson. The juxtaposition was so offensive that the president and general manager of a local TV station wrote an editorial on the company’s website, stating in part: “There are positive and negative elements within every city in America, including Boulder. But comparing the best of one against the worst of another isn’t a comparison made in good faith. In fact, it’s downright dishonest and shows a clear agenda, rather than an honest representation of the truth.”
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Epps remains angry at “60 Minutes” and disappointed in Sanders, saying: “He could have done more to stop the stereotype.”
The legend
Jimmy Smith has an athletic résumé worthy of being the fifth Tiger in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Nicknamed “Silk” and “J-Smooth” because of how easy he made things look on the field, the Jackson native played 12 NFL seasons and surpassed 1,000 yards receiving in nine of his final 10 years with the Jacksonville Jaguars. When he retired in 2006 with 12,287 yards and 67 touchdowns on 862 catches, he held more than a half-dozen records that stand to this day.
Smith first made his name at Jackson State, where he, like Taylor, transitioned from quarterback to wide receiver. Blessed with power and speed, he led the Tigers in receptions in each of his final two years. He was named to their all-century team in 2011 and last year was inducted into their athletic Hall of Fame.
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The honor was humbling and gratifying, much like what he experienced while watching Coach Prime make the Tigers the team to beat after six consecutive seasons without a winning record. Like others close to the program, he viewed it as a win-win.
“Deion didn’t pick Jackson State just to be picking Jackson State,” he said. “He picked Jackson State because we were already a traditional powerhouse of the SWAC. Jackson State was known. We were regularly leading the nation in attendance (at the FCS level). That’s why Deion chose to come. … He chose the top dog.”
Smith is aware of alums who have criticized Sanders for leaving JSU. He calls them “salty” and contends people should focus on the positives and how Sanders created a foundation on which future success can be built.
“Deion came at the right time,” he said. “He laid down a blueprint that was much needed because we had that disconnect of not having alums in leadership positions like we have now with T.C. Taylor. One of the things that has hurt Jackson State — and probably a lot of HBCUs — is we don’t hire our own to be in leadership positions, our alums who really love the school. It’s hard to be a leader when you don’t know what you’re leading, when you don’t know the history, when you didn’t put in the blood, sweat and tears, walking the campus every day and actually knowing what Jackson State is all about and the culture.
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“That’s the disconnect that has hurt our school for many years since back to when I was playing. T.C. can carry on our tradition.”
The professor
On the day before the homecoming game, Dr. D’Andra Orey, a professor of political science at Jackson State, sipped tea not far from Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium. As a native of Jackson, an educator and an HBCU alum and former football player at Mississippi Valley State, he views Sanders’ tenure through a uniquely personal prism.
“It’s an asymmetric picture that’s being painted,” he said. “It’s being painted as if Deion was our savior, and that’s far from the truth. Deion helped resurrect something that was already there. He brought out that excitement that was latent, just like you would bring out the potential in a player. He was able to do that with the fan base, a fan base that was just waiting to win again; they were there ready to support.
“I can’t take away from Deion; it’s the Deion effect. But he benefited as much from Jackson State as Jackson State did from him.”
Follow along: No upper-echelon program was prepared to hire Sanders because, in part, he had no experience coaching major college football. He needed to get as close to the FBS level as possible without actually being there, and Jackson State presented such an opportunity. The Tigers had not only a large stadium, which seats more than 60,000, but also a tremendous following.
“When you see that many Black folk in a stadium that size, the magnitude of that to someone looking in from the outside is amazing, whether it be recruits or just the media coming in and showing it to the nation,” Orey said. “That’s really important in terms of optics. Deion couldn’t have gone down to Southern; they only hold about 25,000. And FAMU (Florida A&M) is about 20,000. He would have been at a small college, and it would have looked like a small college if he were at a place like that.”
One thing about Sanders is he doesn’t do small. He was the rare athlete who simultaneously played professional baseball and football at a high level. He won Super Bowls and earned a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as arguably the greatest cover cornerback in NFL history. Larger-than-life figures like him typically are attracted to the brightest lights and largest stages, which is why realists within the Jackson State fan base knew his stay would not be lengthy.
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“That was fine,” Orey said. “My only gripe is that he never said thank you when he left.”
Sanders’ departure was equally problematic for those who took him at his word when he said God directed him to JSU. That language might be inconsequential to some, but in the Bible Belt, among a heavily Black population, its meaning can transcend football.
“Jackson is a place that doesn’t have a lot of positive things going for it; some might say that about Mississippi in general,” Orey said. “We’re talking about one of the poorest states in the union, and there’s a high correlation between Mississippi and the Black population and poverty. In situations like that, people are looking for hope; similar to when Barack Obama was in office, Deion gave people hope. … With him leaving, there are folks who are kind of bitter because (they view him) as a preacher with snake oil, and they see that as problematic.
“But on the other hand, you have people who want to be associated with something that’s positive, and this was a big deal in terms of the success he brought. Pointing back to Jackson State as part of this success is something they can link to, so I would say there are more people who support him than have a problem with him. But I believe he could have done more for Jackson State and himself if he had stayed. If he would have taken Jackson State to the next level, to where they’re now playing (and beating FBS) schools, now you’ve got a legacy, an Eddie Robinson (of Grambling)-type legacy.”
That’s as close to a “what if” you’ll get from the Jackson State community — because they’ve moved on from Sanders. Even if others have not.
(Illustration: John Bradford/ The Athletic; photos: Rich Storry / Getty Images; Aaron Smith and Charles A. Smith / Jackson State University via Getty Images)
