{"id":11470,"date":"2022-12-28T22:35:03","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T22:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/?p=11470"},"modified":"2022-12-28T22:35:03","modified_gmt":"2022-12-28T22:35:03","slug":"jackson-states-head-football-coach-deion-prime-sanders-announced-departure-after-leading-the-tigers-to-a-swac-championship-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/2022\/12\/28\/jackson-states-head-football-coach-deion-prime-sanders-announced-departure-after-leading-the-tigers-to-a-swac-championship-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackson State\u2019s Head Football Coach Deion \u201cPrime\u201d Sanders announced departure after leading the Tigers to a SWAC Championship victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo by Monica McGhee<\/em><\/p>\n

Tatyana Ross
\n<\/span>Editor-in- Chief<\/span><\/p>\n

Jackson State University\u2019s Head Football Coach, Deion \u201cPrime\u201d Sanders, led the Tiger\u2019s to a victory at the 2022 SWAC Championship on Dec. 3, 2022, and announced he was leaving his position on the university\u2019s football team to the public the next day after only three seasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Clarion Ledger, Sanders signed a contract with Jackson State to remain the head coach for three years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After accepting an offer of close to $30 million dollars from the University of Colorado to assume the role as head coach, Sanders will have to buyout the remainder of his contract with Jackson State for $300,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prime\u2019s departure started off as mere rumors and quickly became the trending topic for Jackson State fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to a letter released by JSU Athletics Director Ashley Robinson, Prime energized and elevated Jackson State football and Jackson State University to unprecedented heights. He said he rebuilt the football program to be smart, tough, fast, and disciplined with character.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Prime\u2019s impact during his JSU tenure goes far beyond his 27 wins and back-to-back SWAC Championships on the field, to the thousands who have been motivated and inspired by him simply saying \u2018I Believe\u2019,\u201d the letter read in part.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the Athletics Department faculty may be supportive of Coach Prime\u2019s move, there were several students and other fans of Jackson State football were not pleased with the announcement. Sanders has been faced with public scrutiny since making his decision to switch universities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seth Adams, a freshman business administration major from Jackson, Miss. stated that when he heard Coach Prime was leaving he felt hurt for the people who were looking up to him as inspiration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be specific, the athletic football students seem to have a special bond with him. As for the regular students, I never heard or seen any impact physically,\u201d Adams said. \u201cI feel we did support him to a degree.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There were some students that did not care that the head football coach was leaving. Jalen Lyons, a social work major from Chicago, Ill., revealed he did not care about the coach\u2019s departure personally but he thinks Sanders positively impacted students as a whole.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other students claimed to be grateful for the time that Prime spent with Jackson State. Kepatrick Thomas, a sophomore chemistry major from Great Falls, Mont., said he was appreciative and confused about the entire situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome football players came for Deion, now they\u2019re having to hit the transfer portal and a lot of people have said it feels like a facade and he only went to JSU to bring attention to himself,\u201d Thomas said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lyons had this to say about the success of the football team during Coach Prime\u2019s time as head coach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe changed the way we view college football. Plus, he also helped us go to the Celebration Bowl back-to-back, something we might not see again next year,\u201d Lyons said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other students on campus were shocked about the removal of Sanders\u2019 hand painted image once displayed on a window of Campbell College Suites, a Jackson State women\u2019s dormitory facing the Gibbs Green Plaza.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The front of the dormitory\u2019s north side displays a variation of images hand painted by students of influential people that have been to Jackson State over the years on its windows.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the news of Sanders\u2019 departure from Jackson State, his image was removed from its spot on the window leaving only an empty space. The image was removed by Adams, who originally thought removing it would be a good idea but some of his fellow students disagreed with his actions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Adams, he was given permission to remove the image from Mary M. Robinson, the Residence Hall Director of Campbell College Suites. He also stated that Robinson mentioned that she has been wanting to remove all the paintings from the dormitory\u2019s windows but she has not had time to remove them herself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other students have claimed that their biggest issue is that they feel Adams had no right to remove the painting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that the removal of his image on Campbell North was justified because he is no longer a part of Jackson State.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Adams said after realizing he upset so many of his peers, he released an official apology. In the apology, he apologized to anyone he offended with his actions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coach Prime has also faced a great deal of public scrutiny due to his decision to leave Jackson State. In an exclusive interview with Rob Jay, on WAPT News on Dec. 6,2022, Coach Prime said he perceives himself as too positive to respond to any negativity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDid I listen to them before I came? Did I listen to them while I was here? So you think I\u2019m going to make time in my life to listen to negativity?\u201d Prime asked. \u201cI\u2019m too positive. I\u2019m too progressive to buy into nonsense. I\u2019ve never had time for it and I\u2019m not going to make time for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Prime and his youngest son, JSU quarterback Shadeur Sanders, will not return to Jackson State for another season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jackson State\u2019s students and other fans may never understand the reason behind Prime\u2019s decision but they seem to agree this misfortune will not break their school spirit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that his departure hinders Jackson State in any type of way because we will always be Jackson State without him,\u201d Lyons said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adams agreed with Lyons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis had deeply affected everyone. But this is a time for us all to come together to make and keep change at JSU,\u201d Adams said. \u201cI love this school and we are Jackson State with or without him(Prime).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Monica McGhee Tatyana Ross Editor-in- Chief Jackson State University\u2019s Head Football Coach, Deion \u201cPrime\u201d Sanders, led the Tiger\u2019s to a victory at the 2022 SWAC Championship on Dec. 3, 2022, and announced he was leaving his position on the university\u2019s football team to the public the next day after only three seasons.\u00a0 According […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11474,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11470\/revisions\/11474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}