Prime Time back in action
Ego, limelight prompted return
By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun
 |
Deion Sanders, one of sport's most flamboyant stars, is about to be in the spotlight again -- this time with the Baltimore Ravens. (AP File Photo) |
"It's not about money," Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick was saying about the return of Deion Sanders to the NFL and this time the NFL's reigning blowhard was right on the money.
It's about the fame.
It's about the ego.
It's about people who need recognition like a flower needs light and oxygen.
Once, players worked into their late 30s and 40s because they needed the money.
Then came multi-million dollar salaries and with it a corresponding fear from the fans. No longer dependent on long careers for a lifetime of financial security, star players could walk away in their early 30s.
A few did. Jim Brown quit the Cleveland Browns at 30.
Barry Sanders bolted from the Detroit Lions when he was 31.
But about the time it stopped being about the money, it started being about something else.
It's about the ego.
Michael Jordan returned to the sadsack Washington Wizards for what amounted to pocket change.
When you're a pro athlete whose name isn't Joe DiMaggio, your star begins to ebb the moment you walk away from the game.
Deion Sanders, more covetous of attention than almost any other body on this planet, saw that coming. Last year, when he reached a loggerhead in negotiations with CBS for his job as a studio analyst, the network reached for a fresher face in Shannon Sharpe.
An applause junkie. That's how Marlon Brando, cruelly we think, once described Bob Hope.
Next to Deion Sanders, Bob Hope was Greta Garbo.
Only Deion Sanders would say yes to hosting the 2002 Miss America pageant. If they had asked, he would have hosted the Florida State Homecoming Miss Congeniality Pageant as well.
PRIMA DONNA
"Deion Sanders was an obnoxious, self-promoting egomaniacal prima donna who rarely tackled anyone with any consistency."
Those were the first words of Sanders' bio on a page listing Florida State's finest football alumni.
"He elevated the art of trash talk to a nuclear level firing on anyone within earshot and always bragging about how great he was. Deion Sanders was also the greatest corner to ever play pro football."
No one sport could hold Neon Deion, so he played two. He was a seven-time Pro Bowler, a major leaguer with the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. He hit a home run and scored an NFL touchdown in the same week and remains the only player to appear in a Super Bowl and a World Series.
It will make for good theatre to decide whether Sanders, 37, has anything left. His speed was waning in 2000, his final year in the NFL, as his long-standing distaste for tackling grew.
"Every guy he covers is going to be sprinting on every route," one NFL assistant said this week. "It's going to be deep patterns constantly."
The Baltimore Ravens, at least, are a perfect fit. A good defensive team, the Ravens employ the game's most devastating linebacker in Ray Lewis, whom Sanders said influenced him to come to Baltimore.
"I've got the utmost respect for Ray and Corey Fuller," he said. "I wouldn't even be doing this if it wasn't for the relationship and the love and the understanding of the team."
Perfect. Fuller is up on federal firearms and gambling charges. At the 2001 Super Bowl, Lewis, charged with a double murder, compared his tribulations to those endured by Jesus.
These guys will already bring plenty of people into the tent.
And that's what Deion Sanders, author of a book on his Christian conversion, entitled Power, Money and Sex -- How Success Almost Ruined My Life, wants the most.
He needs to be Prime Time again. Success didn't ruin his life. Only being out of the limelight could do that.
