Barry Sanders

Football Player

• Born: July 16, 1968
• Birthplace: Wichita, Kansas

Football player

Sanders was one of the greatest running backs in the history of collegiate and professional football. He certainly was the most elusive, with the ability to dance and weave away from defenders. Sanders also was known for his humble demeanor on and off the field and his abrupt decision to retire in sight of the career rushing record.

Area of achievement: Sports: football

Early Life

Barry David Sanders was born on July 16, 1968, to William and Shirley Sanders. He was the seventh of their eleven children. Barry Sanders’s father had been an outstanding athlete; his mother exercised a great influence through her Christian faith and patience. Together, Sanders’s parents instilled in their children a respect for hard work and education.

Although Sanders loved sports from an early age, he was small and often overlooked. At Wichita North High School, he was considered too short to play running back despite his agility. In addition, Sanders already had evolved what he described as his “spit-on-hot-skillet” style of running, darting around to avoid tackles. To his first high school coach, it seemed that Sanders lacked the courage to run straight at the defender; Sanders did not become the team’s starting tailback until midway through his senior year. In his first game as a starter, he rushed for 274 yards and 4 touchdowns. He finished the year in excellent style, gaining a total of 1,417 yards. However, because of his small size, he was not highly recruited by colleges.

Sanders decided to attend Oklahoma State University (OSU), even though the OSU Cowboys already had an outstanding tailback in Thurman Thomas. As a freshman, Sanders mostly sat on the bench and rushed for only 325 yards in the entire season. In his sophomore year, he again had a limited number of carries, playing as backup to Thomas. After Thomas graduated in 1988, Sanders became the team’s starting tailback in his junior year. He promptly put together one of the greatest seasons ever played in college football. Sanders broke twenty-six National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) records for a running back, averaging the most rushing yards per game (232) and the most points per game (21). He rushed for a collegiate record 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns. Sanders won the Heisman Trophy as the best college player for the 1988 season. Forgoing his senior year of college, he was drafted by the Detroit Lions with the third pick of the 1989 National Football League (NFL) draft.

Life’s Work

Some professional scouts remained doubtful of Sanders’s prospects because of his small stature at 5 feet, 8 inches tall and 180 pounds. The NFL was dominated by large, bruising running backs who could plow through defenders. Sanders’s technique was to elude tackles by any method possible, scampering around the field—as he described it, like a “scared rabbit.” With great speed, vision, balance, and agility, he was capable of bursting through any hole in the defensive line. With explosiveness and lateral acceleration, he was hard to catch. With a low center of gravity and massive, powerful legs, he was just as hard to bring down.

In his first season, Sanders won rookie of the year honors, rushing for 1,470 yards, a record for a first-year player. In his second season, he led the league in rushing, averaging 5.1 yards per carry. He earned a reputation as the most elusive runner ever. When grabbed, he could throw off tacklers with acrobatic spin moves and twists of his solid frame. He invented a move dubbed the “jump cut,” in which he would jump in the air and change direction. Offensive and defensive players piled up in his wake while he raced toward the end zone. To fans, Sanders was an electrifying runner, feinting and cutting through broken-field formations. Sanders also earned a reputation for sportsmanship. He never performed touchdown dances or celebrated after his spectacular runs. Instead, he politely handed the ball to the referee and then quietly trotted to the huddle or the bench.

In 1991, Sanders rushed for an all-time Lions record of 1,548 yards, helping the team finish with a 12–4 record. The Lions lost the National Football Conference championship game, falling just shy of making the Super Bowl. In 1994, Sanders ran for 1,883 yards. He possessed another great attribute for a running back: sure hands. From 1993 to 1995, he rushed 703 times without a fumble. In 1996, he ran for his eighth consecutive 1,000-yard season, an NFL record. In 1997, Sanders had his best individual year in the NFL. He ran for a record fourteen consecutive 100-yard games and finished with 2,053 rushing yards for the season, the second-highest total ever. He won most valuable player honors. The following season also was spectacular: Sanders rushed for 1,491 yards and was selected to the Pro Bowl for the tenth consecutive year.

In the 1999 offseason, however, just before training camp, Sanders made a startling announcement. He was retiring at the age of thirty-one, even though he was within sight of Walter Payton’s all-time rushing record. Speculation and even recriminations followed Sanders’s decision but he would not budge. A reserved man, Sanders settled into a quiet retirement. He lived in Michigan with his wife, Lauren Campbell Sanders, and their three children. An older son from a previous relationship, Barry James Sanders, was emerging as a star high school football player. On August 8, 2004, Sanders was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On November 25, 2004, the Lions retired his jersey, number 20.

Since his retirement, Sanders has acted as an ambassador for football and the NFL, and has been involved with charities and his community. In December 2015 he was awarded the 2015 PwC Doak Walker Legends Award, which honors former running backs who are respected figures in their colleges or universities. His other honors included being named one of the running backs in the NFL's 100th Anniversary All-Time Team in 2019.

Significance

Sanders is considered one of the three greatest running backs in football history, along with Jim Brown and Walter Payton. His Heisman Trophy–winning season as an OSU junior is considered one of the greatest seasons in college football history. As a professional, he rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his ten seasons, and for more than 1,300 yards in all but his injury-shortened 1993 season. In half of those seasons, Sanders rushed for more than 1,500 yards, an NFL record. He retired with a total of 15,269 rushing yards, second only at the time to Payton, who had 16,726 yards. In 2021, he was ranked fourth in career rushing yards, having been surpassed by his rival Emmitt Smith, who rushed for a total of 18,355. (One sportswriter speculated that if Sanders had played to the likely natural end of his career, he could have rushed for 19,405 yards.) Football had never quite seen a runner like Sanders, who bobbed and weaved across the field, spun out of tackles, and cut back against defenders with stunning agility. His modest demeanor also made him popular at a time when flamboyant on-field celebrations had become commonplace. To the shock and dismay of countless fans, he retired within reach of the all-time rushing record, with his talents still apparently at their peak. However, Sanders’s entire career spoke of a man who did not see record-breaking as his ultimate goal.

Bibliography

Babb, Kent. “What if Barry Sanders Hadn’t Retired Early?” Sporting News 8 Mar. 2004: 32–33. Print.

Crompton, Samuel E. Barry Sanders. New York: Chelsea House, 2013. Print. Digital file.

Fredrickson, Kyle. “Oklahoma State Football: Barry Sanders Selected as Recipient of 2015 PwC Doak Walker Legends Award.” Daily Oklahoman 4 Dec. 2015: n. pag. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.

Price, S. L. “More Than Three Years after He Suddenly Walked Away from Pro Football at the Peak of His Powers, Barry Sanders Remains a Mystery to Fans, Former Detroit Teammates and Even Members of His Own Family.” Sports Illustrated 3 Feb. 2003: 64+. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.

Sanders, Barry, and Mark McCormick. Barry Sanders: Now You See Him . . . His Story in His Own Words. Introduction by John Madden. Indianapolis: Emmis, 2003. Print.

Sanders, Charlie, and Larry Paladino. Tales from the Detroit Lions. Champaign: Sports Publishing, 2005. Print.