Hopes to Educate Youth Through Sports Nationwide

Hopes to Educate Youth Through Sports Nationwide

Four chartered buses, packed with youth jerry rice jersey and football equipment, food and about 100 kids and parents, were scheduled to pull out of Dallas late Sunday night.

The first stop for Deion Sanders' select football program on its Georgia-Florida tour: New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia. Sanders' post-career calling has been to help young people in the Dallas area by putting together an educational and Christian-based football program with all the trimmings of a pro team.

The parents provide the helmets and shoulder pads and rice jersey, and Sanders -- who played for the Braves and the Falcons -- provides the rest though his non-profit company, Prime Time Association. He called on several former teammates to help. Ex-Falcon Kevin Mathis is one of the head coaches, and Emmitt Smith's son plays for the program with deion sanders jersey.

Sanders hopes to expand the program into baseball, basketball and soccer and is in discussions with the University of North Texas about starting a charter school, grades 6 through 12. He is smiling while looking his sanders jersey.

"I've always done things with kids," Sanders said. "I've always been tied into the community."

Attempting to help children and their families through sports seems to be a nice fit for Sanders.

"You can complain about youth sports and how they are being taught and the way and manner, or you can do something about it, for example, give them a seahawks jersey as an encouragement," Sanders said. "I've always chose to do something about it, instead of sitting back and complaining."

With the help of former NFL players such as Mathis, George Hegamin and Solomon Page, the youth football program was launched. Hegamin is the director of operations.

"We really coach and run this like the seattle seahawks jersey," Sanders said. "We run our summer camp like the pros run their training camp. We run our offseason programs like the pros run." It is not just about football for Sanders. There is an educational component to the program and a mandatory summer camp. The players all had to try out in a seahawks jerseys combine at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to be selected for the team.