Deion Sanders reveals his first name is spelled differently on birth certificate

Deion Sanders has had a lot of names throughout his legendary career. From “Prime Time” to just “Prime” to now “Coach Prime,” the 58-year-old Sanders has gone by a multitude of monkiers.

But there’s one name he’s not used since he first learned to spell — Dion, which is how his first name was originally spelled on his birth certificate, according to Sanders. The third-year Colorado head coach revealed the previously untold story of his original name change, and the children’s nursery rhyme that sparked it, during a recent appearance on the New Heights podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce.

“Where are you getting this stuff from? That is true. That’s true,” Sanders said, surprised by the Kelces’ crackpot research. “But let me tell you what I did. You know (when we were) kids going to school learning how to spell, and we all learned the song – if I say the first part, you’ve got to finish the second part. ‘Old McDonald had a farm, …’”

“E-I-E-I-O,” Travis Kelce answered in a sing-songy manner.

“E-I-O. So, it was D-E-I-O-N. I got it from Old McDonald,” Sanders said. “That’s the way I spell it. On my birth certificate it’s D-I-O-N, but I’ve always spelled it D-E-I-O-N.”

Of course, we’ll just have to take Sanders’ word for it. But given the number of children named “Deion” since “Prime” first made it popular as an electric two-sport star in the early 1990s, it’s an interesting backstory that only further exemplifies Sanders’ lifelong desire to write — and rewrite — his own story.

“You know how bad you have to be that you just change your name and people go along with it?” Jason Kelce asked.

Sanders added: “That was a good one, because there ain’t too many people that know that. That’s real.”

Deion Sanders reflects on playing for Cowboys, calls Jerry Jones the best owner in football history

Sanders reflected on his time in Dallas while making an appearance on New Heights, hosted by Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce. There, he broke down what made his time there so special, outside of all the winning, and just how important Jerry Jones has been during his time there.

“Unbelievable,” Deion Sanders said. “Unbelievable. I was just going through a personal hell at the time. I left San Fran. You know, I need the challenges in my life. Like, ‘Okay, let me go to San Fran. Oh, we beat the Cowboys. Oh, boom, Jerry Jones wants me to go there. Let me go there and see if we can beat San Fran.’ It’s like I needed challenges in my life. We had a bunch of Florida boys that played for the Cowboys at the time. I said, ‘How is it, man?’ Because I ain’t got no time for jealousy. I ain’t got no time for this. I’ve been in some locker rooms with bull junk. I ain’t got time for that. Mike said, ‘We good over here. We Florida boys over here.’ Emmitt, Mike, Big Nate. You know? Okay, so it was unbelievable, man.”

Coming out of Florida State, Deion Sanders was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons. He’d spend time as a two-sport athlete within the city, also playing baseball for the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, and San Francisco Giants at times during his career. He’d become the only professional athlete to play in both the Super Bowl and the World Series in the process. After Atlanta, he played one season in San Francisco before landing in Dallas.

“Jerry Jones will go down and should go down in history as arguably the best owner that ever owned a football franchise because you hear media talk about Jerry. You’ve never heard a player talk about Jerry Jones in a negative fashion because he is unbelievable. I had the luxury to play for Eddie DeBartolo, who was unbelievable,” Sanders said. “Some other ones, Steve Bisciotti later on in life, but let me tell you something, man. The Cowboys, you’re talking about America’s team, and when you travel and when you go places, it’s probably like it is, right now, it’s probably the same way as you were with Philly at the end. Philly fans are crazy. They’ll kill you, shank you. It was unbelievable, man. It really was. It was an experience — we were too young and dumb to really know the level of it.”

— On3’s Dan Morrison contributed to this report.