It’s hard to believe ex-pro football and pro baseball player, Deion Sanders is turning 50 today. given how youthful he still seems on the NFL Network and CBS Sports sets during football season. Deion has had a long and successful career in sports. In fact, Sanders is the only player to play in World Series & Super Bowl. Two-times in the Super Bowl, eight times in the Pro Bowl and he’s a Football Hall-of-famer too.
Some consider Sanders the greatest cover corner in NFL history. Even more say he was one of the top three punt returners in history.
With all that success, Deion wasn’t happy. So much so that he tried to commit suicide in 1997.
When his marriage was crumbling, his father was dying and everything seemed to be falling apart. “You’re on the run, trying to reach out and hold on to something desperate,” Sanders said.
“The enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy. And he was trying to murder me, and I was about to let him do so. And there came that fatal attempt.”
Sanders said he tried to kill himself by driving his car off a cliff when he was playing baseball for the Cincinnati Reds.
“I attempted suicide, but God had his hands on me,” Sanders said. “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 on the car.”
Sanders estimated he was driving “about 65 or 70 mph” at the time.
“You try to fulfill your time and your needs,” he said. “I was just empty. I tried cars, jewelry, clothes, women, money. . . . Everything, nothing could fulfill me.
It was after the crash that Sanders turned his life around and found faith in God. “I know who I am, what I am, where I’m going and how to get there.”
Out of his 12 seasons in the NFL, five of those seasons were spent with the Falcons and one Super Bowl season with the 49ers. It was after the 49ers that Sanders signed with the Cowboys in ‘95, and while his first season with Dallas was delayed as he recovered from surgery, “Primetime” didn’t waste time building up his highlight reel.
While playing for the Cowboys, he had four of his six career punt returns for touchdowns, two of his nine career interception returns for touchdowns, and four of his 13 career fumbles returned for touchdowns. Sanders also was a part-time wide receiver, and had by far his most effective season on the flanks in ‘96, when he caught 36 passes for 475 yards and a touchdown while playing cornerback full-time.
The eight-time Pro Bowler was released in a salary camp move before the 2000 season.
Sanders went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011 after playing in 2000 with the Redskins, retiring for three years, and then playing two more seasons with the Ravens. He also played Major League Baseball with the Yankees, Braves, Reds, Giants and Reds again.
During the 1989 season, he hit a major league home run and scored a touchdown in the NFL in the same week, the only player to ever do so.
In four games of the 1992 World Series, Sanders batted .533 with 4 runs, 8 hits, 2 doubles, and 1 RBI while playing with a broken bone in his foot. Despite Sanders’s performance, the Braves ultimately lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in six games.
In 1997, Sanders finished 2nd in the NL with 56 stolen bases in 115 games while with the Cincinnati Reds before leaving baseball for three years.
Sanders, an outfielder, had a .263 career average with 39 home runs and 186 stolen bases.
So what is Sanders up to now? He’s a NFL commentator, a businessman, a school owner and a motivational speaker. Yeah, he’s doing a lot in “retirement.” The key to accomplishing so much in his lifetime, is belief, Sanders says.
“I live by and teach a saying that I coined at Florida State: ‘You Gotta Believe!,’” writes Sanders in a blog post. “There’s no easier way to put it. You cannot ACHIEVE if you do not BELIEVE! Believe means “to have confidence in the TRUTH”. When you believe in something it gives you CONFIDENCE. People who lack belief will always mistake confidence for arrogance. I’ve always said…
… don’t allow my confidence to offend your insecurity. For most of my life, especially during my playing career, people who did not know or believe in me called me COCKY, when I was just being CONFIDENT. (What in the world does “cocky” mean, anyway?) Please, never allow other people’s disbelief shake your confidence in the TRUTH of who you are.”
His belief comes in three major areas: (1) belief in God, (2) belief in the process and (3) belief in self.
1. Belief in God.
As I shared in my book, Power, Money and Sex before I found belief in God, I was lost and had no direction. I was at the point of contemplating (and nearly committing) suicide. My life was nearly careening into a ditch (literally) until I found belief in God and His love for me. That’s why parents and kids need to be careful of who you choose as role models. I was just a model playing a role.
I TRULY want to encourage you to find the love and direction that has meant so much in my life. All of the success in my life starts with my belief in God. He has given me the direction that I needed and has me on the right path.
2. Belief in the Process.
Success is not an event; SUCCESS is a PROCESS. There is no such thing as an “overnight success”. I can tell you, oftentimes the PROCESS is PAINFUL. I was hit-by-pitch 21 times during my professional baseball career (there’s something about that number 21). Each time I was hit by a pitch I got to advance to 1st base, but I had to endure some pain before I got there. Sometimes, you will have to endure some pain before you can advance in life. Don’t let the pain hinder your belief…it’s all a part of the process.
3.Belief in Self
While it is important to believe in God and believe in the process, it is equally important to believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself…ain’t nobody else will! Diana Ross sang a song that said you have to “Believe in yourself right from the start”. If no one else believes in you…YOU should believe in YOU. When YOU believe in YOU…there is nothing that YOU cannot do! When you believe in you, you start believing that things will work out for you. And when you start believing that things will work out…they usually do!
Oh, and did you know Deion had a brief music career too?
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