But buyer beware: That advice about confidence seems to have double meaning.
“I don’t use cologne,” Sanders writes in the book. “Somebody might pick up on my scent and ask, `What is that you’re wearing?’ I just say, `Confidence.”
He didn’t mean that literally. Or did he? According to government records obtained by USA TODAY Sports, on Jan. 29, an attorney for Sanders filed an application to trademark the word “confidence” as a potential Sanders brand name to use for aftershave, cologne, deodorant, body sprays, lotion and soap.
Such is the marketing guile of Sanders, the master of many product endorsements now serving as head football coach at Colorado.
Sanders, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, recently has been paid to sell California almonds, KFC chicken, Blenders sunglasses and soon a new line of Nike shoes.
And now he’s selling this book – “Elevate and Dominate” – which aims to sell you, the reader, on his “21 ways to win on and off the field.”
What does Deion Sanders’ book say?
It casts himself as mentor in the mold of legendary self-improvement author Dale Carnegie. Much like Carnegie’s books, this one has platitudes about attitude and advice supported by anecdotes about how to succeed on a daily basis, such as by establishing a “good morning routine” and “paying attention to your grooming.”
The former two-sport star also describes lessons he learned from four of his all-time favorite athletes − basketball player Julius Erving, baseball player Hank Aaron, boxer Muhammad Ali and even O.J. Simpson, the former football star who later fell from grace after being put on trial for double murder.
“Not the O.J. YOU know, but the other O.J. that I GREW UP ON,” the book states. Sanders said he admired him because he had “power, influence, success, likeability from all ethnicities” and “you’d see him in TV commercials and movies.”
Sanders admired those traits from Simpson much like he still emulates Ali.
Ali was “brash and cocky,” Sanders book states. “He also had the comments to make headlines – and sometimes his lines even rhymed – but man could he back it up!”
The four of them had something in common, as Sanders sees it:
“Those guys knew how to present themselves well. They had a PRESENCE. The world needs more people with true presence.”
Why are there 21 chapters?
It has 21 chapters to describe his “21 ways to win” – a number that means a lot to Sanders and his brand. That’s because it’s not just the jersey number he wore in the NFL. On Feb. 21, 2021, he made his college coaching debut as the 21st head football coach for Jackson State in Mississippi. The number also is emblazoned in his personal “Coach Prime” logo and is the jersey number worn by his son Shilo, a safety at Colorado.
In this case, there’s another reason the book is structured by the number 21. It’s a tribute of sorts to a 1998 book he admired by speaker and author John. C. Maxwell, entitled “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.” Maxwell also wrote the forward to Sanders’ book.
“This was kind of callout not just to his jersey number but to this book on leadership that had the most effect on him,” said Don Yaeger, the longtime author who worked with Sanders on the book.
In Chapter 21, Sanders revisits his attempted suicide in 1997, when he said he drove his custom-made black Mercedes off a cliff and crashed about 40 feet below.
“I wanted it to be the end,” Sanders’ book states. “But through the grace of God, it was the beginning. The beginning of something GLORIOUS.”
It’s not a new story. Sanders, 56, recounted this low point in his previous book in 1999, entitled “Power, Money and Sex: How Success Almost Ruined My Life.”
In his new book, he also ascribes his arrival in Boulder to divine intervention and ends with a religious message about how faith is driving his “second chance” after years of “pure emptiness.”
Colorado becomes ‘whole different assignment’
After being contacted by CU athletic director Rick George in late 2022, Sanders says he was having lunch with his assistant coach at Jackson State, Andre’ Hart, when he heard a whisper in his head that said one word: “Colorado.”
He described it as a message from God to take the Colorado job, even though two other schools “came out nowhere at the last minute and offered us a ton of money, significantly more.”
“I think God wanted me on a whole different assignment, where I could bring notoriety and validation to a football program in a completely different way,” Sanders says in the book. “He wanted me to unify people in a place with a Black school population of something like 3 percent. He wants me to change the game in a different way.”
Colorado finished with a 4-8 record during his first year on the job – up from 1-11 in 2022. Spring practice for his second season at CU begins March 18. His book publisher said he was not available for an interview.
In the meantime, he plans to promote his new book with a book tour that will take him to Ridgewood, N.J., on Wednesday, Atlanta on Friday, March 15, and Fort Worth, Texas on March 16 before returning to campus for a tour stop in Boulder March 18.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
