WHAT'S THE POINT⁉ Colorado's columnist ban is a BAD LOOK for Deion Sanders - Stephen A. | First Take

Sanders will no longer answer questions from columnist Sean Keeler Colorado attributed the decision to a series of sustained personal attacks in Killer's coverage of the program and this comes just weeks after Prime had took issue with the local CBS affiliate reporter after a story published by CBS coach Prime had this exchange with another media member Saturday if I ask a negative question will you not answer them anymore that's being negative right now like you take an approach that I'm going to be negative I'm I'm not negative to anybody in here I will challenge you and ask you why or where is this coming from so I'm not I'm not built like that I'm not built to hate I'm not a hateful guy I'm not a I I come with love I think any if anybody in here has had encounters with me I don't come with the bull junk I come with the peace and the joy now when you show me where you stand I might have to change that a little bit so I'm not going to match your ignorance all right uh Shay you're up first any issue with how Dion handled that well maybe not that particular guy but there's this one column it's Sean Keeler he's used the phrase false profit deposition Dion Planet Prime Bruce Lee OBS Dion Kool-Aid and circus that's personal if you want to talk about my program if you want to say I'm not doing a good job of coaching if you want to say that I don't I don't do a good job of disciplin my players and my players are not disciplined and they're not playing put the game the right way I can live with that but what what does these personal attacks have to do with my program why are you attacking me personally okay I understand that my Persona preceded me you know he got the name the name Prime and that's what people refer him they call him Coach Prime and I get all of that but this notion that I should be allowed to because I'm in a position I'm a head coach and I should let people talk take personal attacks at me N I ain't gonna deal with that if you want to talk about my program okay that's fine we're not as good as we thought we were we're not as good as we're supposed to be my players Dion is not doing a good job of coaching these players because they're still making the same mistake week in and week out so that shows me if you want to say they lack discipline all these penalties I don't see where they've gotten any better from last year I can live with all of those harsh critiques but when you start to attack me personally nah I'm not going to answer your question I'm just going to keep it moving on I'll let someone else go and they can ask me a question that some people might deem negative but I understand that comes along with the territory but you attacking me personally that don't come along with this territory right Paul Shannon we can all quibble about the personal attacks and that's fair everybody comes from a different perspective I don't I haven't read a lot from this columnist so I I don't know the context uh exactly why he said some of the things that he did but let's not forget that Dion Sanders is a gigantic figure this isn't just some normal football coach at State you uh he's a larger than life personality that that he has encouraged and enhanced and made a fortune off of throughout his career and to take nothing away from one of the most iconic athletes ever to play college football pro football NFL football you name it but he's in a different situation now he's selling Colorado on his name he's in it on Sizzle because it's not a football tradition it's not a football power it's not some place that most of us really care about but one of the few people who who does care about it is this guy that writes for the local newspaper and to publicly go after him I think is a mistake he doesn't have to like it why doesn't he just ignore it that's uh that's how it usually works Stephen A been there in his career as a writer I've been there many times and you just you shut the guy out you don't you don't turn him into the story and that's my biggest mistake is somebody who understands the media like like coach Prime why would he do this what's the point and and here we are we're talking about him okay maybe that's part of it but it's in a very negative and dysfunctional way Stephen A Shannon before you you before you chime in let me say this you know go Ahad last year when Prime arrived at Buffalo yeah obviously Shannon and I were you know we weren't at the TCU game uh but we was at the home we were at the home opener then we took first take there and we did the show from there rooting for Dion I've known Dion for years he's a friend and a brother got a lot of love for him I do not agree with how he's handled this situation I do not agree with how the Colorado program has handled this situation and quite frankly I'm a bit disappointed because you have to have thicker skin than that if you don't want to talk to the reporter Shannon don't talk to the reporter but to have the program putting out a release announcing that we're not going to take questions as a program from this guy is utterly ridiculous you started off three and one you beat TCU put Paul and Shannon back up there I don't want to see just me I want to see the both of them as well TCU was the national runner up the year before Colorado opens the season in a prime time Deion Sanders era you beat them and what did you do Post conference do you believe do you believe and he kept asking that question and he wanted to hear the reporter say Do you believe and then he shoot him off okay so what happens thereafter you win two more games you start off three and0 the rest of the way you lost six straight you lose seven of eight and obviously you're going to have critics people who were lining up remember that pregame motivational speech coach Lanning at Oregon did before they romed Colorado on National Television Shannon and remember how he said you remember he took a direct shot at Prime Time Deon Sanders he was saying y you understand I'm saying we ain't trying to win the headlines we gonna win out on the field and then they went and they slaughtered them and so we have to take we have to take that into account now prime time and I believe in him I believe in him as a coach I damn sure believe in him as a person you know and I know I I've known him for over two decades I know that his purpose is higher than just winning football games but he's also he also somebody that has to understand winning football games that's where it has to start because everything else in terms of the media nobody wants to hear all of that you you you don't want it's listen when we got on LeBron j i I bring up LeBron James for this one thing what did I used to get on LeBron James about Shannon what did I used to get on LeBron James about if he did great it was fantastic he soak it all in and when he had a bad night well I'm just trying to be a role model to the kids and and they used to drive me nuts it's like can we stick to basketball I I this is my brother I I love him and I believe in him and I agree and I know where he's coming from but there is evidence where you've gone against the media there is evidence when you've been negative towards the media because they've been negative towards you maybe not as the head coach in Colorado but as a player you were that way over the years you were that way last year when you beat TCU and you were shoing folks off you were that way you can't then turn around because of a columnist who's been considered somebody I I don't know uh uh uh Mr Keeler at all I don't know I don't know much about his work Sean Keeler for The Denver Post I'm not casting any asures on him but there are people in the media out there that said he has been hypocritical and he has been accused of being a shock jock etc etc if anybody supposed to know how to deal with that it's supposed to be prime timeit let me let me challenge you on one thing though Stephen I I don't think we need to worry about whether Prime can handle the media nobody has thicker skin than Prime I think there's another angle here I think he's intentionally wanting to put the guy on blast so people see it and they know what the deal is I don't think it's at Prime can't take the negative press I think his intention is to let people see what this guy is all about and his deal I'm not I'm not implying that he can't take it but the point is that don't mean you handled it right you got a program that put out a press release about exiling the reporter yeah wait a minute Paul has been a reporter for years I've been a reporter for decades that doesn't happen I'm saying maybe he's showing his power if if a Coach doesn't talk listen nobody had more power than Nick Sabin okay Nick Sabin you didn't hear Alabama is you saw Nick Sabin at the podium going off that's what you saw or you saw him dismissing somebody you didn't see the program sort of coming to your rescue with a bunch of stuff because now you put this guy in the spotlight and now we get to say okay what exactly is it that he said now I understand what you said Shannon and you absolutely right it does seem a bit extreme etc etc but I would remind everybody this is not a reporter he's a columnist a columnist has the license to editorialize and express their opinion in the newspaper industry you're talking to a former columnist this is the license that we have that reporters don't have so his opinion no matter how incendiary no matter how put offish or whatever it is it's actually his right and his job according to the Denver Post to do that I get it I'm not saying it's right or wrong I'm just saying that Dion's no dummy and he's strategic he's been in this game a long time so he knew what the Fallout would be you can say that but I say if Dion did it himself year but for the program to put out a release saying this is what we doing to that reporter the program now looks very very bad Dion could have just said no I ain't talking to you and left it at that but see and that's what the program did the program provided the shield because then everybody would have beat him up allthough we do know where this is coming from because at the end of the day the program is not going to do a whole lot without the blessings of of prime and so when time like basically like okay and then he goes into this uh uh he gets into it with this other guy be says well if if I'm critical of you I don't have a problem with you being critical of me I don't have a problem of other coaches taking shots at my program because that's what you're supposed to do because you we're always recruiting Stephen A and Paul you know that so no matter what transpired even during the course of the game I'm recruiting when I'm when I'm at the press conference I'm recruiting but when you start taking personal shots I mean to call a man a false prophet to call a man to be Bruce Lee of BS what does that got to do what does that have to do with the program Paul I just want you to know I just want to know what does that have to do with my coaching what does that have to do with my exis and no Shannon first of all we're talking about a guy that writes for The Denver Post I I mean it's not like this isn't 1985 or 95 when Stephen A and I were writing columns this is 2024 nobody reads these Publications anymore this is not even an important entity that that Prime has now elevated his words I I doubt half you know more than 3,000 people in Denver even wrote read those columns obviously uh Dion did and and that's all that's the whole point uh he's picking on some little guy for no reason at all and therefore he's coming off as a big bully and whe you guys know him a million times better than I do I know him I respect him I like him I admire him but he still looks like a bully to most people who who are getting a a headline of this across the country I mean we're discussing it on the number one sports show in America not because of anything Prime has done on the field because quite frankly he hasn't done very much off the field he's lost most of his team uh from last year and and he's he's replaced him hopefully very well but but instead he's in he's in a food fight with some guy that doesn't even matter but that's the that's why I think Dion looks very small and Petty here and and the and the entity that looks worse than coach Prime is the University of Colorado for sanctioning this well Shannon and I also want to chime in by saying this Shannon listen sometimes you consider how far and how much Dion has evolved over the years he deserves so much credit for it and we got a lot of love for him but you know what this is going to do they're going to bring up what he did with Tim mver when he DP dumped a bucket of water on him not once but twice Heely he didn't like what Tim marver had said about him as a player sex Etc this is arguably the greatest athlete we've ever seen in history okay so this is who we're talking about here we're talking about the creme deem one of the alltime elites well that ain't Colorado's football program at this particular moment in time and so when your willingness to sh aside others coincides with the struggles that you're having that makes it even worse because it makes it look like you're not handling the the the the losing as well as you claim to be able to handle it and to give somebody that kind of ammunition to come at you I just found it to be disappointing because my whole point is your Prime you're not winning games yet guess what go out there and win some games you don't have to talk to that reporter you can sit up there and say you always got personal stuff to say about me I'm sick of your ass I ain't answering no questions from you you could have done that and left it at that but for the program to sanction it the way that they did now now you got a bigger problem because it means that somebody feels the need to come to your defense to protect you and we're not accustomed to seeing Prime needing protection he is usually his own man who can handle it himself and Colorado jumped into The Fray and now they've made it something far bigger than what it was ever meant to be I can't say I disagree with either one of you guys you both make very very compelling points my only thing and my only thing is is for me is that the personal tax like I said I understand coaching and that's one of the reasons why I don't I never wanted to be a coach because I really can't control the outcome because I'm counting on 11 guys on defense 11 guys on defense 11 guys on special teams even though I've done a great job of trying to coach them up throughout the course of the week there is no guarantee that my coaching is going to translate once the once once I'm on the field on on Saturday or Sunday when are we going to play but for me I just don't I just don't get down with a personal tax if you want to say my coaching style bro I ain't got these guy I ain't got these young men ready to play Stephen A I can live with that and you make the point about the pattern a pattern of behavior that we've seen from when he was a player uh with the T and the brave situation and we see the Jackson State when the guy dressed him and sometime look I think I think time is going to have to understand sometimes they might say things just to get a rise out of You by calling you Dion Sanders when I don't know anybody in the and I've know I've known the guy 30 plus years I don't know anybody that's ever call I've never heard anybody call him his name they call him prime or they call him time and so for him to call him that when he says I like to be known as coach Prime maybe that was a situation and sometimes Steph people will call you thing just to get a just to get a situation out of you that's fair that's fair Shannon but isn't it possible that the reporter that called them Dion you could have sat up there and say call me coach Prime oh my bad my bad I apologize coach Prime he never got the opportunity because you said the minute he called you Dion You shoved him aside that's number one and number two we gotta also we gotta also recognize this again you're a columnist right yo Shannon to call you a false prophet now the other stuff fine but the false propit line let's go with that you Lo when you beat TCU and you were on that rooll and started off you were coming across as prophetic I told you this program going to be special and then it nose dive so again that's not really calling you out your name or anything like that if you writing a column on a football program well you prophesize we were going to do something that you didn't do yet [Music]