Georgia Tech’s Brent Key faces former Braves, Falcons legend Deion Sanders
As a guest on the “Gramlich and Mac Lain” podcast in August, Brent Key joked that he wants to bring a rookie card of Deion Sanders out during pregame warm-ups to have Sanders sign it, then wants to take a selfie with the former NFL and MLB legend.
Such a move would be a bit out of character for the no-nonsense Key, a former Georgia Tech offensive lineman going into his third full season coaching his alma mater. But Key’s 35th game leading the Yellow Jackets will be against Sanders at Colorado at 8 p.m. Friday at Folsom Field will undoubtedly be a surreal coaching matchup for Key who yearned to be like Sanders one day.
“When you grow up an avid sports fan in the Southeast — I was a huge football fan, huge fan of baseball, and, obviously, my team was the (Atlanta) Braves growing up in Birmingham,” Key said this week. “To see (Sanders) be able to perform and play at both sports at such a high level it was just the coolest thing. There were two guys then that were doing it, it was him and it was Bo Jackson. Those were the two guys that I wanted to be like when I grew up. Obviously, couldn’t hit a curveball and wasn’t fast enough to play corner. Or running back. So here I am.”
Key was 10 years old when Sanders became a household name as a senior at Florida State. He twice was a unanimous All-American as a cornerback and was electrifying as a punt returner.
But Sanders also still had an affinity for baseball. He turned down professional baseball after being drafted by the Kansas City Royals out of high school and also played for the FSU baseball team while with the Seminoles. Sanders later was selected by the New York Yankees in the 1988 MLB draft and made his MLB debut in May 1989.
Meanwhile, the Falcons had made Sanders the No. 5 overall pick in the 1989 NFL draft. That would be the start of an NFL career that spanned more than a decade and included a brief comeback attempt with Baltimore from 2004-05.
Sanders’ prowess in both sports became legendary. He was the first person to play in both the Super Bowl and World Series. In September 1989 he hit a home run for the Yankees on a Tuesday and scored a touchdown for the Falcons on a Sunday.
In the 1992 World Series, playing for the Braves, Sanders hit .533, scored four times and drove in a run in the four games he played. In that same postseason, Sanders played for the Falcons against the Dolphins in a game in Miami, then flew to Pittsburgh where he boarded a helicopter to join his teammates at Three Rivers Stadium for Game 5 of the National League Championship Series.
Sanders turned to coaching in 2012, cofounding Prime Prep Academy in Texas, charter schools that eventually closed in 2015. He then coached at Triple A Academy before taking over Trinity Christian in Cedar Hill, Texas, from 2017-19.
Jackson State hired Sanders in 2020. The Tigers went 23-3 over the 2021 and 2022 seasons before Sanders left for Colorado ahead of the 2023 season.
On Friday, the 58-year-old Sanders leads the Buffaloes in his 26th game as Colorado’s coach. Sanders said Tuesday he had tried to reach out to Key via phone to introduce himself, but that introduction will have to wait until Friday.
“I love ya, I appreciate ya, I checked on ya. There’s some guys that know you — that know you know you — that validate that you’re a good guy,” Sanders said Tuesday about facing Key. “And I love to hear that. You come off like that anyway. But that was validation. And I love it.
“Coaching at the university you played at has got to be awesome. It’s got to be, like, unbelievable, man. We came in the same class (in 2023). He was the interim, but he got in when I got the opportunity, so I’m always rooting for those guys in our class.”
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