The Colorado Buffaloes’ Deion Sanders received the praise of the 2015 NFL MVP, Cam Newton, after Coach Prime committed to donating $2,100 dollars to eight of his college football players’ kids.

The 57-year-old Sanders, who is a father to five children and a grandfather to one, understands the hardships of being a young adult trying to find your feet in the world and especially one that’s a parent.

So he has partnered up with Elevations Credit Union to launch The 21 Program which will teach his players how to manage their money, whilst he will also give $2121 to eight Buffaloes‘ players’ children with the amount referencing his own NFL jersey number.

The humanitarian and charitable endeavour has attracted a lot of good publicity for Sanders and his college football team, including that of Cam Newton who spent the majority of his own NFL career as a quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, before playing for the New England Patriots.

“Love it,” Newton said on 4th & 1. “Like it, I love it, I want some more of it. Have we ever seen Nick Saban do this?

“Not to say he’s not a good coach but how dare Paul say… I’m just holding him accountable.

“Never seen Kirby Smart do this. Never seen Dabo Swinney do this. That’s not to say they’re not great coaches, but they are having a lot of responsibility for transferring a boy into a man and that’s what Coach Prime is doing.”

Fatherhood key to Sanders’ philosophy

Sanders continues to place parenthood at the front of his coaching philosophy, announcing to his players that he views himself as a paternal figure to them and that he will never hire a coach who isn’t looking after his own kids.

And he knows raising a child is a lot of pressure for a young person, barely finding their own feet in the world, but he gave them some memorable advice to keep them on the straight and narrow through their journey.

“You ain’t done nothing wrong,” Sanders told the fathers in the audience as he announced the scheme. “Matter of fact, you did something right.”