Deion Sanders Turns Time On Set Into A Mentoring Moment With Nick Saban

What do you do when you’re one of the greatest football players of all time and you find yourself sitting next to one of the greatest football coaches of all time—and suddenly the director of the ad you’re recording yells, “Cut. Let’s take 15,” indicating a break in the filming?

Well, if you are Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders and the guy next to you is seven-time National College Football Champion Nick Saban, you seize the moment and ask the future College Hall of Fame coach for advice.

And that’s exactly what Sanders did during a break filming one in the series of Aflac commercials the two have done together. Having retired from playing football in 1995, Sanders has built himself an impressive coaching career that has brought him, most recently, to the University of Colorado. Now known as “Coach Prime,” in a nod to his earlier moniker “Prime Time,” from his playing days, Sanders approached Saban during the break.

“I went to Coach Saban with a problem that I had,” Sanders said during a recent interview. “And Coach said to me, ‘You know what I did?’ And he gave me an illustration of what he had done in a similar situation. I said to him, ‘Coach, I can’t do that. If I do it, I know I’m going to be criticized.’”

When Saban retorted, “I’m telling you that is what it is going to come to,” Sanders didn’t doubt that Saban was right, only that the timing was off as Sanders was working through the challenge. Sanders knew he wouldn’t have time to put the advice into action.

“In the end, further into the season, I had to do what he told me I needed to do in the beginning!” concluded Sanders. “And, as you’d expect, he was right!” While Sanders didn’t dig into what the problem was or what the advice had been, the lesson we can take from this moment on the set of an Aflac commercial doesn’t depend on Saban’s advice but on Sander’s astute recognition of a mentoring moment when he saw it.

The author of Elevate & Dominate: 21 Ways to Win On and Off the Field, which will hit bookshelves on March 12, Sanders did what so many great leaders do: he saw an opportunity for growth and milked it for all it was worth—which in this case was a lot. When Saban was talking, Sanders said he would interject “and?” or “you’re kidding” to keep Saban talking. Recalled Sanders, “I respect the heck out of him for all the wisdom he knows. He’s my hero. He’s my coaching guru, so I just kept prompting him to keep going. And he knew I was doing it and he just kept going.”

Giving Sanders the gold that only a Saban can give.

One of the reasons the NFL GOAT can become the author of a book on leadership is that Sanders has committed himself in a powerful way to learning from those who have distinguished themselves in fields of endeavor in which he wants to succeed. He embodies the lesson that in order to teach, you have to be able to learn.

In the recent conversation, Coach Prime offered a trove of leadership lessons he has gleaned as both a player and a coach. Among these are:

“This group of young men behaved like leaders who were interested in being there, and they were inclusive, thought-provoking, and conversational,” reflected Sanders of the type of leader he made it a point to pour into. “Now that I have invested in the top, they have the platform to go invest in others, and ultimately everyone on the team gets what they want.”