This story was originally published in The News-Press on Aug. 4, 2011.
A disconnect exists between Fort Myers native Deion Sanders and the hometown that helped fuel him to achieve Pro Football Hall of Fame glory.
The disconnect can be seen from both sides, and it gets noticed by outsiders as well.
Fort Myers Councilman Levon Simms, who coached Sanders in basketball at North Fort Myers High School, compared the relationship between Sanders and his hometown to that of ex-lovers.
"You don't talk to your ex-wife much," Simms said. "You might be cordial because you have kids. But that's about it. That's the way I see it here. It's a two-way street, but why does he feel that way? It's because he does not feel embraced."
At 7 p.m. Saturday, the ceremony to induct Sanders and six others into the Pro Football Hall of Fame begins in Canton, Ohio. So far, there has been little done to acknowledge this locally.
Simms and fellow Fort Myers Councilman Johnny Streets, two men who have known Sanders his entire life, hope the city and Sanders can reconnect, once the excitement and hooplah of Hall of Fame weekend die down.
"I don't see a whole lot of enthusiasm," Simms said of the city's reaction to Sanders' forthcoming induction. "The relationship with Deion and Fort Myers is still not the best."
City policemen once arrested Sanders at the Edison Mall when he played for Florida State over allegations he tried to steal. He was placed on six months probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor battery and breach-of-peace charges.
Law enforcement also once arrested Sanders for trespassing and fishing on a private lake at Southwest Florida International Airport.
Those incidents, among others, have soured Sanders on his hometown.
Sanders told The News-Press earlier this year that local political leaders do not do enough for the impoverished Fort Myers neighborhoods in which he grew up. Those with little to no hope for a better future, he said, remain that way.
Sanders has done charity fundraisers in Fort Myers in the past, but he has not done one since a basketball game at Bishop Verot High School in 1998 that raised money for the local Police Athletic League.
The fall-through of a plan to provide affordable housing in low-income neighborhoods — a for-profit endeavor by one of Sanders' companies — was the last straw, Sanders said of his efforts to help locally.
Sanders lives in Prosper, Texas, and spends most of his time commuting an hour each way, three to four times a week, when he coaches the Truth youth football teams in suburban Dallas.
When Sanders brought the Truth to Southwest Florida in 2009, he brought them not to Fort Myers, where he played for the Pop Warner Fort Myers Rebels, but to Naples.
"That should have never happened," Simms said. "Plain and simple. Does he feel like he's not embraced here? He shouldn't feel that way. We should have made it happen. There's a whole disconnection with Deion Sanders and Southwest Florida.
"He's a hometown hero, but I don't think he was embraced like he should have been."
Not recognized
Even Sanders' local friends have noticed. Richard Fain, a lifelong friend and former teammate, received a formal invitation to attend the Hall of Fame ceremonies this weekend. Fain, however, said Sanders never called him personally to see if he would be coming. The two have not talked in more than a year.
Fain said when fans and friends criticized Sanders during his flamboyant playing days, he often defended Sanders.
"You just don't know him like I do," Fain said he would tell the naysayers.
Fain said he still feels that way and would continue to defend Sanders — but that he now can see why others felt the way they did.
A few weeks ago, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram sent a sportswriter to Fort Myers to trace Sanders' roots.
Clarence Hill, the Dallas Cowboys beat writer since 1997, traditionally travels to the hometown of each of the team's recent Hall of Fame inductees.
Hill visited Pensacola last year and profiled the story behind running back Emmitt Smith, who has a field named for him at Escambia High. Hill went to Fort Lauderdale in 2007, chronicling wide receiver Michael Irvin.
Hill arrived in Fort Myers last month to write about Sanders, a 1985 North Fort Myers High School graduate. and was surprised to find no billboards or signs acknowledging Sanders in Fort Myers nor at North Fort Myers High School.
Hill was also surprised the city of Fort Myers had renamed Graham Avenue to Earnest Graham Avenue in honor of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back, a longtime Fort Myers resident and a Mariner High School graduate, but not named a road for Sanders.
Streets said he will put something together to try to change that. There have been talks, he said, of honoring Sanders and other hometown heroes from all walks of life at the new Clemente Park off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
"We have to put our personal feelings aside and meet each other halfway," Streets said of Sanders and the city mending their fences. "I think it's a matter of people sitting down. He's from Fort Myers, and he will always be from Fort Myers. That's never going to change. It's just a matter of mediation."