Deion Sanders shows ‘overt disregard for consequences and accountability’ at CU
Deion Sanders has been accused of showing “overt disregard for consequences and accountability” during his head coaching tenure with the Colorado Buffaloes — with Deadspin’s Sean Beckwith being the purveyor of such a strong accusation; one that includes a wild comparison to one of the greatest television characters of all time, Walter White.
“On this week’s episode of fall camp, Coach Prime scolded members of his team who didn’t turn a routine practice skirmish into a riot, saying, ‘If one fights, we all fight,'” Beckwith prefaced before saying, “His, umm, approach shows an overt disregard for consequences and accountability — and it’s standard operating procedure. Whether he’s forcing a full-on exodus of players, or trying to amputate his foot ASAP so he’s ready for the season, it’s a refreshing(?) take on rule-breaking that’s already upset the apple cart.
“Coach Prime does things differently from his peers, and is being covered like he’s college football’s Walter White. Never mind that a terminal disease was the impetus for the latter to break bad, nor that he became a meth kingpin who killed a kid. None of that matters because Walter White, like Coach Prime, has palettes of money.”
Deion Sanders hit piece misses the mark completely
The comment from Beckwith about Coach Prime amputating his foot to get ready for the start of the 2023 season — something that has been confirmed not to be happening — is mindbogglingly hypocritical in the context of a piece calling out Sanders’ lack of kindness to his players. Quite frankly, it’s a comment that deserves condemnation and nothing more. No matter how much you seemingly loathe a coach for his methods, mocking his health issues is abhorrent.
But it’s Deadspin we’re talking about here. Perhaps that simple sentence could’ve prevented the pondering about how a publication can be so two-faced while also asserting itself as the moral authority.
Outside of the foot comments, Beckwith’s oversensitivity regarding Division I athletes fighting in practice misses the mark when it comes to what makes football teams click. Sure, no one likes the idea of student-athletes fighting, and Sanders most certainly came off as a tad bloodthirsty, but this is a man who rose to the top of the sport in a different era with coaches who likely promoted the same things he is.
Not everyone is going to get it, and not everyone has to. But having blatant anti-Coach Prime propaganda written because it’s the popular thing to do right now in the media, before Colorado has played a single game mind you, seems just as much a money-grab as anything Sanders is doing to get the Buffaloes to respectability.