Deion Sanders Ought to Take his Leadership "Personal"
The headlines left no ambiguity whatsoever.
"Deion Sanders made me a believer"
"Deion Sanders gets A+ for making haters look silly"
But, the most ominous headline for me was: "Is Deion Sanders' smashing Colorado debut the start of something big?"
Last year's Colorado team was absolutely abysmal, with 1 win and 11 losses on the season, and a remake of the roster was a necessary task for whomever led the team. 73 players departed from the program in the last year, which isn't all bad. However, the way in which many of those players left should be cause for concern, particularly as the narrative that surrounds college football begins to laud Sanders' approach.
A mere 72 hours before Sanders' Colorado Buffaloes upset Texas Christian University, who was the runner up in last year's national championship game, ESPN posted a story that exposed the cold, cutthroat approach to Sanders' remake of the Colorado roster.
"I don't care about culture. I don't care. I don't care if they like each other, man. I want to win," Sanders said.
The ESPN article also made it clear that Sanders did not care about the people who were a part of the team at the time of his arrival in Boulder.
"The fact you can get cut like that, it kind of sucks, but that's what college football is nowadays. It's just a business, so you've got to start to understand it," one former player said.
Another former player commented, "I just wasn't wanted, basically. They basically said that."
By all accounts, little--if any--consideration was given to these former players on their way out. Reports circulated that Sanders and his staff did as little as possible to help those former players after abruptly dismissing them from the team, while Sanders bragged about “bringing (his own) luggage with (him), and it’s Louis (Vuitton).”
In the wake of Colorado's upset victory on Saturday, however, those concerns are all but forgotten. They are seen as a regrettable, but insignificant cost of the new normal in college football.
Success, it seems, is all that matters. This is just the reality of modern college football.
It's nothing personal, it's just business.
The truth is: In order to win, you don't have to make somebody else lose. The true reality of modern college football is that college athletic departments have enormous staffs and lots of resources--particularly those programs that are, like Colorado, members of "Power 5" conferences.
Sanders didn't have to take care of each and every one of 73 departing players on his own. However, he could have connected them with the resources and support they needed to make sure they had a smooth transition and landed on their feet. The truth is, as much as Sanders is fond of taking the smallest slight and making it “personal,” he didn’t have the time or interest in taking a “personal” interest in the lives of those 73 players he kicked out the door.
Sanders accepted $29 million from Colorado to become the team's Head Coach. If he cared about the people in his program, not just the bottom line, he easily could have negotiated a better way to support the enormous number of players he wanted to remove from the team.
Instead, he made a "business decision," which is really just coded language for "looking out for himself and his own interests." If it doesn't affect him, he doesn't care.
When you have the choice to advance yourself at the expense of others, the choice you make is a direct reflection of what--and who--you really care about.
Will you make a "business decision," or will you make a decision that is bigger than yourself, one that makes a personal commitment to the people entrusted to you as a leader?
It's a personal decision, for sure. If it wasn't, it would just be "business as usual."
