'Prime Time'? Cowboys Star Deion Sanders Left Dirty Legacy in Dallas

Cowboys Deion's dirty Dallas, no more double-down for Mavericks, Rangers' resurrection and an inspirational star is born in Texas, all in this week's DFW sports notebook.

 COWBOYS WHITT'S END 9.15.23:

Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …

*It’s not like I’m wagging my condescending finger at Deion Sanders to slip off his hoodie, remove his sunglasses and get some manners. But … I am scratching my head at how suddenly his unique style has camouflaged his ugly substance.

For dramatically turning around a moribund Colorado program, Deion is the darling of the college football season. Every talking head is slobbering over him. Every heartbeat in the transfer portal wants to play for him. There are even those already fast-tracking him to an NFL coaching job in 2024.

Though it was his opposite cornerback Larry Brown who won MVP, Sanders helped the Dallas Cowboys capture their last Super Bowl 27 years ago. But while in DFW, Deion was as troubled as he was talented.

It’s as if his current swag, braggadocio and success is shrouding the superstar skeletons in his closet. So, perhaps a refresher is in order?

Psst, this Colorado revolution is about one thing and one thing only: Deion’s latest vanity project, to feed one of the biggest egos in the history of American sports.

No denying Deion’s charisma in front of the cameras or his legendary athleticism on the field: he played in both a World Series and a Super Bowl, for crying out loud. But as a husband, coach and educator, way before his Colorado celebrity he was a colossal, controversial failure.

In 2012, the same persona who wrote a book titled Power, Money & Sex and starred in a reality TV show called Prime Time Love was planning on opening his own charter school in Dallas … fittingly called Prime Prep Academy. As a writer for the Dallas Observer, I joined a team chronicling his ambitious endeavor.

The scandal, fraud and mismanagement started before the doors even opened.

We learned that Deion’s co-founder, D.L. Wallace, was inexplicably being paid rent for a Prime Prep building that he didn’t own. When we approached Deion about the arrangement, he offered no rational reason and instead brushed us off with a patronizing “God bless you.”

Prime Prep’s application to the Texas Education Board was found to be plagiarized from another school. Along with promising students a “world class education,” the document also contained outright lies about securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from corporate giants Wal-Mart, Home Depot and NFL Network. When we contacted those companies, they were dumbfounded that Deion was even starting a school, much less about some pledge of financial assistance.

During its three-year run, Prime Prep was a series of embarrassments, including being ranked as the “worst academic institution in North Texas” by the non-profit, Children at Risk. Sanders was front and center, twice fired as football coach, accused of choking two employees and telling school administrators – on a tape recording – that he not only wanted a hefty pay raise but also a new job title: “HNIC.”

Prime Prep shuttered its doors in 2015 with less than an hour’s notice, leaving students without a school and employees without paychecks.

Said a TEB member upon the school’s closing, “Prime Prep will no longer be a financial lottery ticket for those who don’t care to understand how to educate children.”

To this day, some in Dallas mock Deion’s failed school as “Crime Prep.” Quite the legacy.

During his contentious, high-profile divorce in 2013, Sanders’ wife, Pilar, accused him of using steroids and of physical abuse. In custody hearings a piano teacher for Deion’s children testified that he threatened her outside the courtroom, saying he told her “I am going to get you.”

At one point, Sanders yelled “Oh, God!” and stormed out of the courtroom.

His explanation? “Some things are just so unbelievable … you just remove yourself from the situation.”

We know first-hand the many old Cowboys teammates who swear by Deion and vouch for him as a person. That list includes Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman, Jason Garrett and many others. So ... Here’s hoping Deion has matured, evolved, improved. (It’s obviously preposterous to think he’s been humbled.) And here’s praying that he runs the Colorado program cleaner and better than he did his own school in Dallas.

His current stardom is intoxicating. His past history suggests Buyer Beware.

*Props to the NBA for at least trying to solve its biggest problem. Imagine buying tickets to see the Rolling Stones and then learning 15 minutes before the concert that Mick Jagger wasn’t going on stage. That’s what the league did to its customers on the regular with all the “load management” and “rest” b.s. the last couple years. 

Starting this season teams will be prohibited from resting two “star” players in the same game. Which means the Dallas Mavericks can’t sit Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving on the same night. The fine – $100,000 for the first offense – amounts to a minuscule rounding error for owners like Mark Cuban, but it’s a first step in the right direction.

*What a sports-tragic Texas Rangers’ season. It started with an injury to Jacob deGrom and ended in the last week with injuries to Adolis Garcia and Max Scherzer. All that good baseball they played for five months just … wait, what do you mean they’ve won six in a row and are suddenly in a virtual tie for first place in the AL West with two weeks remaining? 

After the gut-punch sweep at the hands of the Astros we wrote them off and turned to football. But while we weren’t paying attention, the Rangers weren’t giving up.

*I have a new hero and he goes by the name Walker, Texas Ninja. Okay, his real name is Vance Walker, but his nickname is way cooler. Vance’s mother had a difficult pregnancy and at 18 months old he was diagnosed with a form of Cerebral Palsy called “spastic diplegia.” Until he was 7 he had to painfully stretch his legs each morning for 30 minutes … just to be able to fit into the leg braces he needed to walk. Doctors said he’d never run, much less play sports. 

Well, this week Vance made those doctors look stupid and made Texas proud as he won Season 15 of American Ninja Warrior. Now 18, Walker climbed a 75-foot rope in 27 seconds to become only the third athlete in the show’s history to win the $1 million grand prize. That’s an impressive amount of lemonade Vance squeezed out of his life’s lemons. Bravo!

*It’s beneath me to find joy in someone’s personal injury, but maybe cocksure, smarmy anti-vaxxer Aaron Rodgers should have done his “own research” on just how bad the Jets’ offensive line was going to be before he agreed to a trade to New York. While he’s left us to watch Zach Wilson Sunday in Arlington, Rodgers also struck a blow to manifestation. 

In the end, his darkness retreat, ayahuasca experimentation, power of positive thinking and speaking things into existence were only as strong as his brittle, 39-year-old Achilles.

*Jerry Jones can’t help himself from raising eyebrows every time he opens his mouth. This week he claimed Dak Prescott was the best quarterback “leader” of his Cowboys’ reign and revealed that his favorite all-time player is Michael Irvin. Clearly he doesn’t subscribe to the theory of “I love all my children equally.”

*Hot.

*Not.

*Last time the Cowboys started a season 2-0 was 2019 and it led to … an 8-8 record that got Jason Garrett fired.

*Saw a group of people this week posing for a photo. Before the shot, they were just talking. Casually. No sign of effervescent emotion whatsoever. But as soon as the camera was in place … SMILES! I mean, mega-watt, ear-to-ear grins. After the shot, faces immediately back to neutral. Why do we do that? Why are we all actors intent on portraying people that are much happier than we really are?

*Fitting tribute comes Sunday for former Cowboys executive Gil Brandt, who passed away in August at age 91. Helmets will be affixed with a blue star decal featuring “Gil.”

*Apple unveiled its new iPhone 15 this week. The key feature: Universal charging cables! Yawn. You know why I’m not giddy to upgrade my phone to a 15? Because I’m not real certain which one I have now. Maybe a 14? Perhaps an 11 Pro? Whatever it is, it’s good enough.

*After serving up a record tennis beatdown (40-Love) of Daniel Jones and the Giants, the Cowboys in the next two weeks now get to face Wilson (Jets) and Joshua Dobbs (Cardinals). That’s a slam-dunk 3-0 start, right?

*Stop littering. Please. You can’t hump the flag and boast about loving precious ’merica if you’re going to flippantly flick your cigarette butts and/or throw your fast-food trash out the car window. When I take charge, the fine for littering will be $1 million. Oh, and you’ll have to watch this epic 1970s TV ad on loop.

*Cowboys 20, Jets 10 – New York comes to town with a stout defense. But without Rodgers.

*This Weekend? Saturday let’s workout with a rugby team. Sunday let’s lick our guaranteed wounds and watch Cowboys-Jets. As always, don’t be a stranger.

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