Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders loves his mother, Connie Knight. He reiterated that on Wednesday during a virtual pep rally hosted by BLK and Bold Co-Founders Pernell Cezar and Rod Johnson.
When Johnson asked Sanders about his parental figure, Sanders talked about Connie and Willie Knight’s positive impact on his life – one that often meant they were too busy working to be at his high school football games.
“My mama, it’s still to this day, is her. Never complain, never took a day off work. And I’m going to say, this is something funny, but she never saw me play ball in high school. It’s not that she didn’t want to. She was working,” Coach Prime said.
“We played on Friday nights and Tuesday nights at basketball and baseball, but if it was a weekend, yeah, but we didn’t play on weekends. We played during the week. So I could have easily had a pity party and said, ‘Hey, I got no support, ain’t nobody come to see me play, ’cause Papa was a rolling stone, so ain’t nobody.’ No, I know what my mama was doing, and she was just making it better for me and my sister to make sure she provided it along with my stepfather, but I didn’t have no pity party.
“I made a bow to myself when I was seven. I’m gonna make a lot of money, I’m gonna be rich, you never gonna have to work another day of your life because I’m not gonna keep allowing you to do this when I want you to be there to see me do my thing.”
Knight is still honored by her grandchildren, with Shilo having recently given her a shoutout. Coach Prime’s gratitude was passed down to his kids.
Deion gave a shoutout to all single mothers and fathers, like himself and Knight, and pleaded for them to get help.
“I would like to see initiatives to (help) single mothers and fathers. Oftentimes, the single fathers get overlooked. Yeah, I was that. Yeah, so we are there too, but some of the single moms, man. Sometimes they don’t even need to hang out. They just need to hand up. What do you mean by that? They need the hand up,” Sanders said.
The fireside chat marked the release of BLK & Bold’s 2025 Impact Report, which spotlighted over $464,000 contributed to youth organizations nationwide.