Maurice DeShazo and Deion Sanders
Deion's move to the Colorado Buffaloes and early success offers a novel but also familiar vision for success driven by Black Leaders
About a week before Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes loudly announced their arrival with their upset win over TCU I happened to stumble over a Maurice DeShazo throwback jersey in a little shop on my way to the gym. My curiosity piqued I wondered about the player that made the #12 Hokies jersey significant. In 1990 when graduating from Bassett High School Maurice DeShazo was considered the 13th best quarterback prospect in the country. Having been recruited by at the time football powerhouses like Nebraska and Tennessee DeShazo made the fateful choice to attend Virginia Tech and play for Frank Beamer’s Hokies.
Prior to DeShazo’s decision to join the Hokies, the program was struggling. After Beamer was able to convince Maurice DeShazo to come play quarterback the program went to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in the history of the program. DeShazo’s recruitment and subsequent play put Virginia Tech on the recruiting and media map in a way they didn’t relinquish until the recent rise of the SEC blotted out the sun for all but the most storied programs. Frank Beamer went on to have a long and storied career as the head coach of the program and his son Shane Beamer is now head coach as well. Maurice DeShazo’s path was a bit more rocky after leading the team to those bowl games.
In “Draft Day No D-Day For DeShazo” by Randy King of The Roanoke Times, we learn that instead of flagging down receivers on hot routes Maurice DeShazo will be flagging down customers on a used car lot. The article walks through DeShazo’s accomplishments and allows him to give a direct voice to his frustrations with the entire process and the perception of his play. Citing the play of Randall Cunningham and Steve Young and his success at Virginia Tech he makes a strong case, especially with the hindsight of the current state of the game where mobility is almost a prerequisite for elite play in the game. Nonetheless, we’re informed that DeShazo would need to switch to cornerback if he wants to have a shot.
I was thinking of this story as I watched another ACC alum take the NCAA by storm so far in this young season. Deion Sanders’s Colorado Buffaloes are the story of the season. Upon leaving Jackson State University for the University of Colorado Deion became the story of the offseason with coaches and commentators lamenting his “flashy” ways and the presumption of his team-building strategy.
As the NCAA has failed to resolve the tension of running a multibillion-dollar enterprise without paying the labor pool a series of kludges have been constructed to create a gray zone for players and schools. In order to relieve the tension at the heart of the industry the NCAA has liberalized transfer rules no longer punishing student-athletes for deciding they should play for free elsewhere by making them ineligible for a season which was the previous practice. Another kludge allowing boosters and alumni to pay the players in lieu of sharing the revenue the players make directly has also developed. This is the environment in which Deion has taken advantage by completely rehauling the Colorado Buffalo program by turning over a roster that went 1-11 last year for kids some of whom he’s been coaching for the majority of their lives.
The chief example of this strategy has been his literal son and the starting quarterback for the Colorado Buffalo program, Shedeur Sanders. It is the early success of Shedeur along with the history of quarterbacks like Maurice DeShazo which has captured the imagination and rooting interest of Black people across the country. After starring at Jackson State for the last two years people have taken the success of Shedeur as a personal rebuke of the decades of thinking that relegated quarterbacks who’ve seen success at the collegiate level into being converted wideouts or defensive backs at the professional level.
We can’t discount Deion’s personal charisma and savvy in promoting his program but we have to acknowledge how strong a base he has in doing so being a father guiding his son through the semi-professional collegiate system and onto larger fame and money after decades of this path being reserved for coaches like Frank and Shane Beamer. Deion being seen showing care and concern for his players as an example of an unbowed Black patriarch is the center of his appeal and the current national recruiting pitch we’re seeing being unleashed on the college recruiting world. It’s no mistake Deion has been vocal about being an unbowed Black coach with a locker room of players that are 75% Black. The image of a program genuinely centering and valuing players as people is an undeniably appealing pitch in a field where you can regularly find “fans” yelling slurs and demands to “go back to the ghetto” at players when their team is losing.
Maurice DeShazo didn’t get the support we’re seeing Shedeur receive now and to have a father backing his son to the hilt until he forces the league to acknowledge his talent is an undeniably compelling story. It’s the backdrop of this which problematizes it for us. The logic of the NCAA where players are still not being paid and their futures often depend on coaches deciding how much support they’re worth remains.
We saw this logic at play during the offseason when Sanders himself discussed what he looks for in recruits for his program where he pushed a stereotypical view of what’s needed of a “field general” as a quarterback is traditionally designated. When he contrasted this with the defensive linemen who are “hungry” and looking to “do it for Mama” we got an unvarnished understanding of the logic at play throughout the system. The compulsion to be the provider is placed on 17 and 18-year-old kids who are then compelled to sacrifice their bodies to do so. This moment showed us the trap of looking to succeed in a system that in its design and practice has been built to denigrate.
Sanders’s exit from Jackson State also highlights the limits of this model for success as well. Deion’s personal coaching ability, name recognition, and charisma are unmatched in football. If there would be any singular figure who could lift a program to prominence it would be Deion Sanders, as we’re seeing in his current run at Colorado. Despite these advantages Deion left Jackson State citing the lack of resources and support the school was able to provide. While he’s been able to bring a lot of his players to Colorado with him for this current run of success. But everybody couldn’t make it. Jackson State’s program is in a better place than before his run but the ability of him and his players despite all the talent they’re currently showing wasn’t able to lift the JSU program to the same level of success we’ve seen after only two weeks.
Deion’s success should be cheered but it’s important we examine what we’re rooting for as well. Players like Maurice DeShazo highlight exactly what people are pushing against when they decide the Colorado Buffaloes are going to be their “second favorite” team this year besides their regular rooting interests. The celebration of Black families and fatherhood, the proclamation of an unmitigated Black masculinity in defiance of a bigoted system will always garner applause. On the flip side, the patriarchy inherent in demanding a teenager “do it for Mama” and the limits of individual competency remain too. As we recognize what resonates in the current moment we also must continue to search for and build models that cannot not only redeem the collective injury of quarterbacks past but create an environment where everyone can genuinely thrive in a transformative manner.