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I want to take you into the future and Tom Brady's son is a star high school quarterback. He leads the country in passing yards and touchdowns. Recruiters from around the nation are camping out at Brady's house. He's the best prospect in the history of high school football.
Brady's son decides he wants to check out Deion Sanders and the University of Colorado (or whatever school Sanders is at in the future) because he likes Sanders and Brady has told some good Sanders stories over the years. Sanders and young Brady hit it off and it looks like Brady has found his college home. However, there's a problem. Brady doesn't meet one of Sanders' criteria for playing quarterback at Colorado.
So Brady picks the University of Michigan instead.
What's that criterion? What's the remarkably dumb, non-scientific, and insulting criteria Sanders set that caused young Brady to pick his old man's school?
The lack of a dual parent household.
In a recent interview with "The Rich Eisen Show," Sanders was asked what attributes he looks for in players.
"Well, we have different attributes. Smart, tough, fast, disciplined with character. Now, quarterbacks are different," Sanders said. "We want mother, father. Dual parent. We want that kid to be 3.5 (GPA) and up. Because he has to be smart. Not bad decisions off the field, at all. Because he has to be a leader of men."
Since Brady is divorced, his son wouldn't meet Sanders' archaic 1950s era mandate. A divorced household isn't a two-parent one.
While what Sanders said appeals to the right-wing crowd, I'm unaware of any study that says one-parent household kids are at a disadvantage when it comes to playing college quarterback. If you know of one, please shoot me a note.
Also, what if a parent died when a kid was young? What if a parent left before the kid even knew the father or mother? There's a certain sense of, well, grossness about setting this type of artificial social construct.
There's also a level of tactical stupidity here. By taking this stance, Sanders is potentially alienating a large swath of candidates, from coast to coast, of all economic backgrounds. One survey found that in 2022 there were about 16 million children living with a single mother and over three million children living with a single dad.
That's a lot of potential quarterbacks Sanders could be passing up.
Sanders doesn't even live up to his own criteria. While he was speaking specifically about quarterbacks, Sanders himself has been divorced. Twice.
Sanders' position is reprehensible for a variety of reasons, but the biggest is the message it sends overall. He is in effect saying that children from one-person households are inherently defective. It is accurate to say that studies show single-parent families can be at an economic disadvantage and that can lead to developmental issues.
But problems can happen in two-parent homes as well. Nuclear families also have financial problems. What matters most is that the home is a loving one. Do you know families with two parents who fought all the time or were violent or horrible parents? Yeah, me, too.
My parents divorced when I was young and I grew up with the best mom in the universe. I wouldn't change a thing. I can't imagine an employer saying they wouldn't hire me because my parents broke up. I can see not hiring me because I'm a dork addicted to science fiction, but because my parents divorced? Wuuuut?
We haven't even gotten into the absurdity of how grade point average isn't necessarily a predictor of good quarterback play. GPA might be important if you want to go to law school but the list of quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame who didn't have great grades is substantial. Not that I'm a Rhodes Scholar but neither was Terry Bradshaw.
I've mostly supported Sanders because I think he did good things at Jackson State. This, however, is absurd.
There's still time to change your policies, Deion.
Brady's son is watching.
