Newly inducted Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is friends, former rivals and former teammates with Michael Irvin, who just a few years ago gave the best enshrinement speech Canton's ever seen. Deion took it upon himself to make sure his name gets mentioned just after Irvin's and Shannon Sharpe's whenever people list these things (oh man, people list these things don't they), drawing on his extensive (you'll see just how extensive!) network of clerical influences to create an anagrammed sermon on the topic of Deion Sanders.
Here's the video, via Black Sports Online (you have many thank-yous to get through first):
Deion Sanders 2011 Hall of Fame Speech by BlackSportsOnline
I keep saying it: Deion is my favorite athlete ever, and I'm proud that he's the first Falcons player in the Hall.
But do you believe he bought all those gold chains solely for the cause of paying his mother's bills? Think about what a leap that is. A lot of people have done the math and found that it adds up, and that just goes to show how good Deion is at this stuff.
His mother drove him to succeed. That certainly makes sense, is admirable and should be appreciated. But to cast every act he's taken since Tallahassee as singularly focused on his mother is a sneaky way of revising history, of providing a twist ending. He was doing it for good the whole time, you guys.
Sanders always tells his own story. Saturday night, he didn't just turn face, to borrow a pro rasslin' term. This time he chose a turn that would re-cast his entire life and public image.
It's not that I'm not buying it. That's kind of not even my point. Like the best parts of the Bible, it's not about whether you take them literally, but about whether you can invest in the spirit of the story. Of course a Deion Sanders speech about Deion Sanders gets Biblical.
You can't deny the truth behind his message, even if it's overinflated. It's more that I'm once again appreciating how in charge Deion is of what people think of him and amazed that a man who's been famous for decades can elect to be thought of differently henceforth and simply make it happen with one speech.
He's good at this, y'all.
For more on this year's other finalists and inductees, visit the 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame StoryStream at SB Nation's NFL hub. For more Falcons, join The Falcoholic.