Recently, we watched the NFL draft at home. My son was very interested in the spectacle the draft has become. This year, you couldn’t watch any part of the three-day event without hearing the names Shedeur or Deion Sanders.
If you did not follow the draft, let me give you a quick summary. Shedeur Sanders thought he would be the No. 1 pick, but he was picked closer to the end of the draft with the 144th pick by the Cleveland Browns. Not only did this include a loss of almost $50 million in guaranteed income over the next four years for Shedeur, but he also had to deal with the fact that many people were blaming his father/coach, Deion, for the national embarrassment he suffered.
While Shedeur is still likely set for life and will recover, this is a good opportunity to compare what I’ve seen from Deion Sanders on the national scene over the last two years (and specifically during the NFL draft) to what I see in youth sports today when parents and other leaders make decisions that hinder their kids’ development. Here are a few glaring mistakes that were made that I continue to see over and over in youth sports today:
The focus was exclusively on results, not development. Two years ago, after a successful coaching stint at Jackson State, Deion (and his hand-picked players, including his two sons) chose the University of Colorado over programs in more competitive leagues. In hindsight, it was the perfect move to keep the narrative that his son is a “winner” and produce better statistics against lower-level talent, all while collecting trophies for Shedeur and his teammates that would have never been accomplished had they played in the Big 10 or SEC.
In youth sports, some parents have chosen to take the path of least resistance to ensure their children become winners. In my 20 years as a coach, I’ve learned that winning is relative to your competition and circumstance, and ultimately, holds no real value without context. Whether it’s stacking a team to play against lesser talent or even putting their much less technically developed child on a team with one player who can take over games (and relegating their child to a mere spectator), parents are focused on collecting their own trophies instead of keeping youth sports focused on development. In the end, NFL teams seemed to believe that Shedeur was not as good as his record or statistics showed.
Social media, talk and hype will never dictate reality. While Deion Sanders was one of the top athletes in the history of the world, his talent as a promoter has now outshined anything he ever did as an athlete. Thus far in his coaching career, he seems to control much of the media around college athletics while producing average results. The astonishing amount of money and attention that he has brought back to CU have largely been a result of Deion being able to edit and post inspirational stories of the “history” they are making in college football.
At this point, we should all understand that social media is 90% “BS,” and the lack of truth in social media has fueled anxiety, depression and loneliness like we have never seen before in our youth. Yet, parents still use social media to make sure everyone knows “they” made the elite team or won some obscure tournament. While celebrating isn’t bad, it’s the importance that we put on these “wins” that is the problem, and parents don’t understand how harmful this will be in the future for their kids if the wins don’t continue.
Deion took this type of curated narrative even further by retiring his son’s jersey before he really had a chance to prove himself at the next level, possibly thinking this would help boost his status as one of the greatest football players ever at CU. Sadly, the NFL doesn’t care what hype a player has; they grade you on their own metrics, and NFL coaches graded him as a backup QB. This is where Deion overplayed his influence in the NFL.
Misguided goals lead kids to strive for the wrong things.
Before the draft, Deion and Shedeur said multiple times that he wanted — and deserved — to be the No. 1 pick in the draft. For any person with a goal, it’s incredibly important that your goal is not out of your control. So, don’t make your goal the result. This is where the youth sports of today have diverged from the sports that we, our parents and grandparents participated in. Players, guided by adults, are focused on the wrong things: winning the championship, garnering awards, going Division I — instead of focusing on the things that influence the result, like hard work, being a great teammate, supporting each other, grit and humility.
This brings me to the real No. 1 pick, Cam Ward. He was a zero-star football player coming out of high school. He was the ultimate underdog that nobody believed in until late. It didn’t matter to him because he was focused on being a great teammate and leader who could influence his peers through his performance. While I’m sure it was a dream to become the first pick in the NFL draft, it wasn’t the focus. Sadly, Deion thought it was a good idea to tell everyone his son deserved to go in that slot, instead of telling his son to show the NFL his dynamic attributes and why those would be a fit.
While Deion Sanders may have cost his son a great deal of money at the beginning of his professional career, I will still say that, ultimately, he should be proud of the fact that he has multiple adult children who are confident and successful people. I know that doesn’t happen without him being a strong, supportive parent and leader who influenced their lives in other ways. Let’s take heed of this lesson and be strong and confident leaders for our kids, but leave all the BS results, social media and misguided goals to the “influencers” to ensure that our young athletes keep the importance of sports in perspective.
