Deion Sanders is one of only a handful of athletes to ever play in two of the U.S.’s major sports leagues. The all-time NFL great was also a solid starter-caliber outfielder in the MLB. But those weren’t the only times his athletic versatility allowed him to push the boundaries.
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Sanders, an all-time great cornerback (53 career interceptions), was also perhaps the greatest return man in NFL history (18 total return TDs). And on top of that, he pulled triple-duty for the Dallas Cowboys as a wideout in 1996.
He could play three positions on the football field at an elite NFL level. But could Sanders have done four? Most may have forgotten, but before he starred for the Florida State Seminoles, Atlanta Falcons, and the Dallas Cowboys, Neon Deion was wowing his community in Fort Myers, Florida, as a bona fide quarterback as well.
“The way I act with that ball, you didn’t know that?” Sanders joked when Michael Vick said he had just learned about his time as a QB in high school. “I loved quarterback, man.”
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Apart from his dominance on the gridiron, Sanders also knew how to get down on the hardwood and the diamond, becoming a letterman in football, baseball, and basketball during his time at North Fort Myers High.
Coach Prime revealed that his stint at QB is when he first started calling plays. “Me and my high school coach were so tight, I called my own plays,” he said.
“I was that astute with the offense to call my own plays, and I loved it. And that’s why when I got out of the game, I was coaching my sons, and they played quarterback,” added Sanders.
Vick, intrigued, asked Sanders to describe what kind of quarterback he was. What was his style? Sanders said that, basically, he could do it all — you just had to wind him up like a toy soldier first.
“I wasn’t Mike Vick, I was like a microwaveable Mike Vick,” Sanders joked. “Like you just had to warm me up. Like, I could throw, read coverages like crazy. Definitely could run. There was nothing in the [shot] gun there, nothing in the gun.”
Sanders added that he wore No. 10 and not his beloved No. 2 back then because the jersey numbers didn’t go that low at his high school. “That’s the lowest number we had. Yeah, I was a dime,” he said.
His famous No.2 jersey, which he started wearing in college, has since been retired by Florida State.
