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Barry Sanders will be on the Cover of Madden ’14

Published

11 years ago

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Photo Attribution: USATSI

Photo Attribution: USATSI

I’m pretty sure @johnwsnyder said it best yesterday about Barry Sanders being voted onto the cover of the new Madden ’14 video game:

Sanders was famously reserved about his 1988 Heisman trophy celebration. OSU was playing Texas Tech in Japan at the time of the announcement (can you imagine the things Johnny Football would do in Japan?) and Pat Jones had to coerce him into accepting the trophy via teleconference.

Here’s an excerpt from Sports Illustrated:

Like everyone else, Jones is mystified by Sanders’s rare combination of talent and humility. “I don’t think he’d mind getting named the best football player in college; he’d just prefer not to go through the things associated with it,” says the coach.

Unfortunately for Sanders, that includes the Heisman ritual, but as late as Saturday morning in Tokyo, Sanders was insisting that he wouldn’t appear on the TV broadcast. He wasn’t a shoo-in to win the award, though the two other leading candidates, both quarterbacks, had stumbled. UCLA’s Troy Aikman was hurt by the Bruins’ losses to Washington State and Southern Cal in nationally televised games. USC’s Rodney Peete had a rough outing in a showdown for No. 1 against Notre Dame two weeks ago on national TV.

“It’s just not that big a deal for me,” said Sanders of the Heisman. “And it’s not really fair to so many other people.

And the conclusion:

At any rate, being the thoughtful guy he is, Sanders wilted under the pressure applied by CBS and Oklahoma State officials, and he finally agreed to do the Heisman show. Sanders walked into the TV studio on Sunday morning looking as though he were about to be publicly flogged. Sitting beside Jones, he stared straight ahead at the cameras. A technician tried to position a monitor next to Sanders so that he could watch the same highlights of himself that viewers back in the States were seeing, but he told the man to turn off the monitor. Sanders, who can fall asleep whenever he feels the need, often naps through team film meetings rather than have to watch himself perform.

So who was that man I saw doing First Take a few weeks ago talking about the Madden cover[1. I didn’t actually see him on First Take because I don’t watch the show but I read that he would be on it and presume he was campaigning for the Madden cover because that’s what he’s been doing a lot of lately.]? And who was that man last night tweeting (I mean, Barry Sanders…tweeting?!?) people to vote him over Adrian Peterson in the finale of voting?

Even Tiger Woods weighed in:

Here’s a sampling of Barry’s tweets:

I’m not hating on Barry, all of this is fine, just quite the juxtaposition from his formative years.

Two last thoughts: 1.) I think he’s probably wearing the same suit he wore in 1988 for the Heisman presentation. 2.) If you would have told 1988 Pat Jones “in 25 years there will be this thing you do on your phone where people all over the world can read the thoughts of famous athletes and people and Barry Sanders will be heavily involved” would he have laughed at you or had you committed?

Or both?

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