Michael Strahan and Deion Sanders partnered together to design suits for Jackson State University football players’ first game day of the season.
On Sunday, the football team will be making a grand entrance at the Orange Blossom Classic against Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU).
Sanders is the head coach for Jackson State University’s football team.
Strahan and Sanders are committed to bringing awareness and resources to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Sanders and Strahan both went to HBCUs.
“He’s one of the sharpest guys on television, if not the sharpest guy on television,” Sanders said. “Please don’t tell him I said that.”
“I know somebody who prides themselves on looking good and feeling good,” Sanders said. “And he lives it. He embodies it. And he is a dear friend, and he has a lot of money — let me pick up a phone and call this guy: Michael Strahan.”
Strahan designs custom suits for Men’s Warehouse and wears the suits daily while hosting ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“We’re going to go and do it Coach Prime’s way,” Strahan said. “We’re going to change every button, every pocket, every seam. We’re going to do the collar and the inside. We’re going to do everything to it.”
Koral Chen, a business developer for SMAC Entertainment, lead the effort. Over 150 athletes were measured for the custom suits.
“The hardest part was that no detail went unseen by Deion,” Chen said.
Strahan told Insider that it’s important for the players to have confidence and a sense of pride.
“When you’re wearing those suits with a team, it’s a sense of community,” the former football player said. “You have a frame of mind that you’re going into this game to be accountable to each other from the beginning.”
“And accountability and teamwork are the only way you win.”
The two football players believe that HBCUs are often overlooked, underfunded, and underappreciated.
“I want to build so much pride in these HBCU kids that when they step out into the world after their football career — or during their football career if they’re fortunate enough to go to the next level — that you have other kids who see it and want to be part of it, too,” Strahan said.
Men’s Warehouse is looking to partner with other HBCUs.
“We’re trying to figure out how we do that in a way that… allows us to scale and do it more efficiently,” Carolyn Pollock, Chief Marketing Officer for Men’s Warehouse’s Tailored Brands Inc., said. “We’re pretty excited that we’ll be able to bring this to more people.”
Strahan praised Sanders for his passion and dedication to coaching young athletes.
“I knew exactly what those kids were getting,” Strahan said.
“They were getting someone who had picked themselves up and become successful to the highest level in anything and everything that they’ve ever decided that they wanted to do,” he said. “And they were going to be able to see that person in the flesh.”
“That’s one thing that you miss at an HBCU sometimes.”
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