'Coach Prime': Deion Sanders reveals 'life-threatening' hospital stay in 2021 season
Deion Sanders spent a month last fall in a Jackson, Mississippi, area hospital, and the first-year head coach of Jackson State University’s Tigers football team couldn’t coach his squad in person for that same month during the heart of the program’s transformational season.
In Sanders’ new documentary series that he has produced with Barstool Sports, the former Florida State All-American and Pro Football Hall of Famer revealed just how dire his health situation had become after his Sept. 22, 2021, foot surgery.
“The first time I looked down the bed and saw what transpired … because I had nine total surgeries,” Sanders said during his appearance this week on the Pardon My Take podcast, pulling up his left pants leg to reveal a severely reshaped lower leg-calf area. “It was always a problem with my toe from football.
“It was my fourth toe surgery, and it just didn’t heal. The trainer was looking at it and she said we need to go get this checked, your big toe and second toe is black. We need to go to the hospital now. I said let’s go to practice and then we’ll go (to the hospital).
“And then doctors started looking around to each other and you’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, something’s going on.’ And then I was there for a month after that.”
Sanders chronicled how he was bed-ridden, in-and-out of consciousness and lost 35 pounds during the hospital stay.
“I had a surgery and then came right back to work [but had to again immediately return to the hospital],” Sanders shared. “Because it was a threat to my life. It was life-threatening. Still to this day people don’t know. My team knew, because when I first came back I addressed the team and it was, that’s going to be a tear-jerker (on the newest episode of ‘Coach Prime’). I didn’t use profanity but I used other words.
“It was bad, it was really bad. It got really, really bad. Lost a lot of blood as well. I don’t think I was awake but for maybe couple hours a day at a time. I didn’t eat anything for like weeks. I lost 35 pounds, was size I was in high school.”
