Getty Image / Tom Cooper
Deion Sanders was an extremely busy man from around 1989 to 1995 when he was a dual sport professional athlete splitting time between the MLB and NFL.
For most of his time as a dual sport athlete, Coach Prime was with the Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta Braves which made calling Atlanta his home base pretty easy but Deion Sanders was also with the Yankees, Reds, Giants, and Reds while also jumping around in the NFL to the 49ers, Cowboys, Redskins, and Ravens. Professional athletes spend a LOT of time on the road and Deion Sanders was working double duty.
When he was traveling, Deion Sanders used a fake name at hotels. It’s not uncommon with professional athletes who don’t want to get mobbed by fans. And for Sports Illustrated writer Peter King, now at PFT, revealed Deion Sanders’ fake name as ‘Redd Foxx’ in his latest ‘Football Morning in America’ column.
Peter King writes:
I remember going to a lobby phone in the downtown Pittsburgh Hilton late on a Sunday afternoon in August 1992. “Could you ring the room of Redd Foxx please,” I said. Deion Sanders’ pseudonym in road hotels. He’d given it to me because he knew in the media world there was SI and everyone else was angling for second place, and he wanted a pipeline to the magazine. I got him on the phone, he told me his room number on the 19th floor, and I went up. I found Sanders shirtless, with a crucifix against his glistening chest, bat in his hand. He’d gone hitless against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield that afternoon, and now he was taking swings in front of a mirror in his room—all the while trying to figure whether to play football or baseball full-time, or whether to split the baby. He was depressed.
Redd Foxx.
Now that we know Deion Sanders’ fake name we need someone to ask him the origins of Redd Foxx. Why was that the name chosen? Was it the name of a street he grew up on + name of his favorite actor or something like that? Or was it completely arbitrary?
I interviewed him back in like 2010 or 2011, some time around then and something to do with some video game he was promoting at the time. It’s been so long it is hard to remember. But he shut down any fun questions (about FSU) so I suspect whoever asks him about the name Redd Foxx will also quickly be shut down but it’s still worth asking.
Elsewhere in the Coach Prime world, Deion Sanders was outspoken after haring rival coaches speaking negatively about Colorado.