Excellence is Hard: Deion Sanders & The Need for Straight Talk

I was chilling one evening and going through my Linkedin and saw something pop up on the feed. It was a clip from 60 minutes about how Deion Sanders came in to turn around a college football team. He encouraged the team to transfer out. During the interview with the reporter he was direct and when he made the comment, “you got here and you didn’t pull punches, those of you we don’t run off, we will make you quit, you made it very clear”

Deion says: 

“If you were into that, and were able to let words run you off. We ain’t for you cuz we are old school staff. We coach hard, we coach disciplined. So if you are allowing verbiage to run you off because you don’t feel secure with your ability, you ain’t for us.”

The reporter responds: “I’m sure this straight talk was appreciated by some but do you think this scorched earth policy is good for college football or for the kids?

Deion goes to say: “I think truth is good for kids. We’re so busy lying that we don’t recognize the truth no more in society. We want everybody to feel good. That’s not the way life is. Now it’s my job to make sure we have what we need to win. That makes a lot of people feel good. Winning does.”

 The reporter: “I gotta push back, you’re the father of college athletes? If they called you and told you we got a new coach and they are telling me to get in the transfer portal.”

Deion responds: “Then you must not be doing well. Because you should be an asset and not a liability.” 

Right on. I’ve been known for being a tiger dad and brutally honest to my founders. I’ve long stated that I’ve hated the stupid “everybody gets a trophy for playing” garbage. It’s not reality and it’s sociologically corrosive. This is why America is losing. That’s why the West at large is losing because of this attitude. 

It reminds of what Larry Summers said at the 2023 All in Podcast Summit: “We have gone from thinking self esteem comes from achievement to thinking achievement comes from self-esteem.”  The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we can fix it. Thank goodness America still has pockets in excellence in plenty of new immigrants and immigrant kids who believe otherwise. This may be what saves us and gets us back to winning.