Game Changer: Top recruit Travis Hunter signs with Jackson State University
The Thursday Thoughts!
It's rare that major media outlets like the NY Times and CNN cover national high school football recruiting, but yesterday was no ordinary NCAA Early Signing Day due to Coach Deion "Primetime" Sanders and his Jackson State University signing the #1 high school football recruit in America, Travis Hunter of Suwanee, Georgia.
Hunter, a life-long fan of his new Coach Sanders, originally committed to Florida State University—where Sanders starred in the 1980s—with hopes of becoming "Primetime II." But with the Seminoles struggling to another losing season this past fall, rumors had it that Hunter would "flip" his commitment to Georgia or Alabama, two playoff teams that will vie for the national championship later this month.
But a few weeks ago, Hunter was invited to Jackson State to visit the school during its rivalry week game against Alcorn State; with nearly 70,000 fans on hand, the Jackson State and Alcorn State bands battling in the stands and on the field, a coterie of celebrities, including rapper Boosie Badazz, walking the sidelines and engaging the crowd, and legions of beautiful young Black women enjoying the festivities, I knew at that moment that Hunter just might flip the script and sign with Jackson State.
While there was some HARSH backlash against Hunter's choice yesterday, mostly from white racists, white racists pretending not to be racist (but betraying their real feelings with every Tweet and Facebook post), and some Black folks who, like Minister Malcolm X once derided, invoking the slave massa loving, "Boss, we sick" trope, most of the responses that I read on social media were very supportive and cognizant that Hunter's signing with Jackson State could lead to many more talented young Black athletes returning to HBCU's.
Such choices, though, are still fraught with peril because the angry vocal minority includes coaches like Lane Kiffin of Ole Miss and Dabo Swinney of Clemson, both of whom have griped and moaned the past few days about how "the game is changing."
Or, men like Florida Republican State Representative Chip LaMarca, an FSU supporter and one who "claimed" that he didn't know that yesterday was national signing day, but who just happened to file a bill on the same day Hunter chose Jackson State to help Florida's universities more easily facilitate the NCAA's "Name, Image, Likeness" (NIL) rule, the controversial legislation that allows college players to get paid.
Many years ago, my friend/mentee James Coleman, II, a star fullback at FSU in the Aughts, first told me that if corporate money could ever get doled out to Black Colleges and individual players, that star Black athletes would return to HBCU's.
Enter the NIL, where this past season, Ohio State University Freshman Quinn Ewers signed a $1.4 million dollar deal before sitting the bench and in recent days, transferring to the University of Texas. Alabama freshman Bryce Young, this year's Heisman Trophy winner, signed a deal worth nearly one million dollars this past summer, too. While most observers assumed that NIL deals would benefit the big predominantly white institutions (PWI) with rich boosters and benefactors, some HBCU players signed deals as well, including Sanders's son and star quarterback, Sheduer, who signed a lucrative deal with Beats by Dre (Dr. Dre, formally of the iconic rap group NWA).
With social media abuzz that Jackson State had "bought" Hunter with a $1.5 million dollar deal from Barstool—an assertion that was proven false late yesterday afternoon, such falsity only left many clueless fans, like Florida's Rep. LaMarca, scratching their heads in confusion. In fact, LaMarca posed the question that fans like him went to bed crying real tears in wonderment: “What is the reason to go from a program that was in the top-5 for 12 years straight with three national titles (Florida State) to a small HBCU in Mississippi (Jackson State)?"
My reply, first argued on two Facebook posts and expanded here, is as follows:
1. Forget your feelings... (I used another "F" word but my mother and pastors are faithful readers of my blog so I’m trying to behave… 😆)
2. Kids like Hunter have a right to attend whatever school they damned well please and don't owe anyone any explanation as to "why”…
3. To those saying "Jackson State bought Hunter..." Really? As if PWI's haven't been buying young Black athletes for the past three decades by building million dollar cathedrals with enticing amenities; or, wealthy white boosters giving poor Black athletes handshakes filled with thousands in cash; or, families of star players being given "no show" jobs by "Friends of the Program”—don't get mad now just because the NCAA's Name, Image, Likeness rules allow any school that has benefactors willing to ante up big bucks, including HBCU's, to recruit big time talent. Indeed, as the old country hunting saying goes, "it ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun."
4. Forget (F-bomb) your condescending and racist attitudes about HBCUs: Jackson State and South Carolina State have as many (or more) NFL Hall of Fame players than the overwhelming majority of PWI schools; just as FAMU, Grambling, Southern, Tennessee State, and others have placed more men in the pros than the vast majority of PWI schools. That you simpletons don't know this history says more about your own "sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity," as the late Dr. Martin Luther King once quipped, than it does about the truth that what once was, can be again, regarding HBCU sports.
5. If the Jackson State's, Florida A&M's, Morehouse's, Fisk's, and Howard's of the world didn't exist to produce graduates that shook the racist Jim Crow system to its core in the 50’s and 60’s, most of you modern day Mister Charlie's and Missy Ma'am's wouldn't have ANY young Black athletes to cheer on each year at SEC and ACC schools that refused to sign Black players en masse until the 1970s—two decades after the the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education ruling had mandated an end to segregation "with all deliberate speed..."
6. I find it funny how the same folks who claim to just love capitalism, somehow seem to hate that the NCAA's Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) rules allow college athletes to cash in on a small part of a market that finds BILLIONS generated in revenue for big PWI schools—and coaches signing contracts worth over $100 million dollars.
7. It's funny that the same folks who are now just a swearing that Coach Deion Sanders broke some NCAA rules to sign Hunter, don't seem to know how the NCAA's NIL rules really work...
8. It's funny that the same folks who are pissed off about Travis Hunter choosing to sign with an HBCU on signing day, after being committed to Florida State for months, never complained at all when some kid flipped their commitment on signing day TO Florida State. Like Shavar Manuel, a Top 50 defensive tackle from the IMG Academy who was a University of Florida commit for months, switched to Florida State on signing day, and laughed along with FSU coaches as he described having "trolled" Florida all along because he always intended to sign with FSU. (Note Bene—Manuel never made it to FSU due to poor grades and test scores).
9. Something tells me that had Travis Hunter flipped his commitment to Alabama, Clemson, or Ohio State, PWI teams that have won championships this past decade, instead of Jackson State, an HBCU, that the level of racist hate that I've read this day would be far less pronounced...
10. I have seen pictures of folks burning Deion Sanders's Florida State jerseys, while others called him a traitor (and much worse) for signing Hunter. Question: Were Florida State University graduates Mack Brown (Coach, North Carolina) or Manny Diaz (fmr. Miami coach) traitors for signing 4* and 5* football players that Florida State wanted to sign over the past seven years? No they weren't, and the level of nastiness that I've read this day is of no surprise, but infuriating all the same...
11. 97% of the folks that are cursing and using racial epithets towards Coach Prime, Jackson State, and hoping that Travis Hunter gets hurt would never say those words to their faces. Indeed, the internet makes tough guys out of folks who can't even walk to their refrigerator without toting a firearm...
12. I see how slavery thrived in the U.S., because there's some racists right here in 2021 who really think that PWI schools own the rights to free Black labor on a college football field...
13. Last I checked, Coach Prime's degree was earned at Talladega College...a storied HBCU...so it seems like Mr. Sanders got some of that good ol' Black College knowledge in the process! Like the old United Negro College Fund slogan holds: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste..."
14. I remember reading somewhere that Coach Prime wanted to coach at the very school he helped put on the map, Florida State, but wasn't signed, in part, because he hadn't earned his degree. Still, I wonder if Prime had already finished college whether FSU would have hired him to replace Willie Taggart, especially when considering that the internet was flush yesterday with FSU fans screaming how "unqualified, ignorant, and incapable" the 11-1 Sanders is as a coach? Well, seems to me that Coach Prime was qualified, wise, and capable enough to sign the #1 player in America 😃!
15. As a Morehouse (College) Man, I and the majority of my Brothers did not approve of many of the political positions that the late conservative pundit Herman Cain exclaimed, but he was a Morehouse Brother and when he passed away from Covid last year, he was mourned as a Brother! And yet, all day yesterday, I read vile comments seeking to excommunicate Deion Sanders from the annals of FSU history by some alumni and fans, many of the latter who couldn't tell you where Ruby Diamond Auditorium is located on campus without using Google if their miserable lives depended on it!
16. I hate it for my many Black friends who played ball at FSU and other PWI's who were reminded, quite forcefully, that the "love" that Black athletes at PWI's claim is extremely one sided at times...
In conclusion, to the incredulous folks who still cannot believe that Travis Hunter would choose to attend Jackson State instead of Florida State, I ask why wouldn't this kid want to attend a college that played a significant part in educating Black people and the civil rights struggle in America? Why wouldn't he want to learn from (and play for) arguably the best defensive back in football history—one with significant NFL ties to this day—and star on the same field that NFL Hall of Famers Walter Payton, Lem Barney, Jackie Slater, and Robert Brazille starred on in the 1960's and 70's? And in this modern era of television contracts between major networks and HBCUs, along with streaming services like ESPN-Plus, in true "if you build it, they will come" mode from the movie "Field of Dreams," what Coach Prime of Jackson State, Coach Willie Simmons at FAMU, and Coach Eddie George, another NFL Hall of Famer who coaches at Tennessee State, are building at their respective schools truly could shift the pendulum back to HBCUs becoming dominant players in college football once again. As a proud graduate of Morehouse and Florida A&M, and as the son of a man who balled out for the Rattlers during their heyday under legendary Coach Jake Gaither, I am ALL for this bright future!
Thank you for subscribing to the Hobbservation Point—have a great Thursday!
“ racists right here in 2021 who really think that PWI schools own the rights to free Black labor on a college football field...”
That part 👆🏾
Excellent post! Every point was definitely “On point.” I’m so sick of these folkz thinking they still “Own” us. That young man has the right to go wherever. As I’ve stated on other platforms, I was alive when my own parents (Both college educated from HBCUs) couldn’t attend said institutions. There was no Voting Rights Act. So let them kick rocks and stay on their side of town.