Things haven’t always been “prime” for flamboyant former NFL star and current Colorado football head coach Deion Sanders, who recently took some time to sit and revisit one of the lowest points of his life.
Coach Prime admitted that his marriage to Carolyn Chambers, mother of his children Deiondra and Deion Jr., was on thin ice, and the rocky state of his relationship at the time acted as a catalyst that pushed him to contemplate taking his own life. Sanders and his son Shedeur sat down with former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on the “All the Smoke” podcast for a wide-ranging conversation before the discussion pivoted to Black men’s mental wellness.
About 30 minutes into the interview, Jackson asked the two-time Super Bowl winner, “Has Prime ever dealt with mental health?”
“Yeah, shoot, I was on the side of the highway trying to kill myself. Trying to off me. You darn right I did,” Sanders responded. “I went through a phase. God was calling me collect, but I didn’t want to accept the charges.”
Sanders explained that his 1998 divorce made him come to the realization that he could possibly lose his children forever.
“I was playing baseball at the time, man, and going through my first divorce, so now your kids are taken from you, and you know, that’s the only thing you feel like loves you, because ain’t nothing else is real. The only thing that you feel like loves you came out your seed, so I’m like, ‘damn, the kids gone.'”
Sanders continues telling his story, recalling driving down the highway after his baseball game earlier in the evening.
“I was going down the highway [in] Cincinnati, and I was playing Kirk Franklin’s ‘Conqueror’ — ironic. I’m ’bout to off myself, and I’m playing ‘Conqueror.’ ‘What kind of conqueror are you, punk? You sitting up there looking in the rearview looking in the side view and you sitting up there trying to off yourself.'”
Sanders detailed how he attempted to drive his Mercedes off a cliff, which he said was a 30-to-40-foot drop. He survived the ordeal and surprisingly did not suffer any significant injuries. The experience appeared to serve as an eye-opening and life-changing moment. It was at that moment that Sanders decided his life was more than worth living, and he began a spiritual journey.
“I ran my car up the highway, dawg, and I got to the end … and I was still here,” Sanders continued. “And I remember the police came down and they knocked on my window. They said, ‘You alright?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ They said, ‘Somebody ran you off the road?’ I said, ‘No,’ and my attorney at the time, Eugene Parker, who’s passed now, he said, ‘Look, either I’m gonna get you some help, or we’re going to have to step away from the game and get yourself together some type of way because this is real.’”
“And he introduced me to this gentleman named Pastor David Forbes from Columbus, Ohio. I made the drive to him and he made the drive to me, and I started spiritual consultation,” the coach explained.
Sanders released “Elevate and Dominate” in March and he cited God’s grace for allowing him to survive the near-death encounter.
“I wanted it to be the end,” Sanders wrote in his book. “But through the grace of God, it was the beginning. The beginning of something GLORIOUS.”
Sanders also previously opened up about his suicidal thoughts in his 1999 autobiography titled “Power, Money & Sex: How Success Almost Ruined My Life.”
“I finally just got on my knees and gave it all to the Lord,” Sanders said.
“Slowly, but surely, I had to deal with my faith, deal with my strength,” Sanders said. “I had to get a lot of Word in so that I could fight off the enemy. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my faith. People argue about what faith is and who Jesus is, but it works for me. I’m not going to sit here and argue about who is what, and what is what, I’m just going to say it works for me.”
The story later resurfaced in 2019 when ESPN hightailed Sanders’s standout athletic career in an episode of its “30 for 30” docuseries. The episode primarily focused on how Sanders managed to play an NFL game for the Atlanta Falcons and an MLB game for the Atlanta Braves within a 24-hour period. But Sanders also touched on the time he struggled with his mental health.
