Getty Image / Hyoung Chang / The Denver Post
Deion Sanders caught the ire of Florida State Seminoles everywhere when he recently insisted that he is ‘not a Nole.’
During a press conference earlier this week, Deion Sanders insisted that he is not a Seminole and is instead an HBCU grad, saying that it’s where you graduate from that is the real connection.
This is, of course, an odd semantic argument as Coach Prime famously played for Bobby Bowden and the Florida State Seminoles from 1985-88 where he was a multi-sport athlete, won the Jim Thorpe Award, appeared in ‘The Seminole Rap’, and went on to be drafted 5th overall in the 1989 NFL Draft. So Deion Sanders is very much a Seminole despite distancing himself after not being offered the head coaching job that ultimately went to Mike Norvell.
Rich Eisen spoke about Deion distancing himself from FSU. It doesn’t take a Ph.D in rocket science to see that it’s bad for (Colorado) business if Deion Sanders is hyping up FSU, but Rich Eisen explores more than that.
The NCAA requires head coaches to have a degree, which is an interesting caveat in all of this. Sanders left FSU for the NFL before graduation which was obviously the smartest financial move he’s ever made. But going back to get finish his degree from Talladega College in Alabama was an NCAA requirement for him to be able to coach at Jackson State, which is worth noting.
After mentioning the above, Rich Eisen goes on to discuss how he believes Deion Sanders was interested in the FSU job when Mike Norvell got hired. Despite not having accrued the resume for the FSU job, there have been instances in other sports players were fast tracked for positions.
Asking Coach Prime about being ‘a Nole’ days before his coaching debut at Colorado would obviously be trigger for Deion if he still feels as if he deserved the FSU job and didn’t get it. And on top of that, he has no interest in helping FSU recruit off of his words.
Anyway, here’s Deion Sanders in ‘The Seminole Rap’, the funniest thing to come out of his time at FSU:
‘Not a Nole’ he says… Sure.