And to top it off...our good ole buddy Pat Forde wrote the SI article.
Making up more Deion bulljive to justify a silly award.
Deion Sanders: God-Fearing Man.
If hip-hop culture isn’t your thing, Sanders can pull you in with his public espousing of religion. He is a God Squadder who refrains from swearing, peppering his sentences with
durn and
bull junk as replacements for cuss words—just as his legendary college coach, Bobby Bowden, did.
There is no greater example of Sanders’s cross-demographic reach than his friendships with Lil Wayne and Peggy Coppom, the lifelong fan who has become the
Sister Jean of Colorado football. Coppom goes to church daily and respects Sanders’s religious nature. “I really like the fact that he’s not reluctant to express his faith in God,” she says. If there was anything Sanders did this year that could be characterized as Christianity in action, it was his peacemaker role after Colorado State safety Henry Blackburn delivered a cheap shot that led to Hunter missing 3 1/2 games with an internal injury. With Colorado fans heaping abuse on Blackburn and his family, Sanders defused the situation.