Jan. 26, 2006

by Jared Gelfond, Illinois Sports Information

Long before Justin Sanders was patrolling the secondary and starring in junior college at Northeast Mississippi, another member of the Sanders family grew up admiring the biggest school in the state and in awe of the guys who took the field at Memorial Stadium.

"Growing up on the south side of Chicago, I was very aware of the University of Illinois and their football program," recalled Justin's father, John Sanders, who would go on to play six years in the National Football League for the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. "I had an aunt that went to school there, and because it was the state school, we always followed the football team. I used to dream about playing for the Illini and we used to always hear about guys like Dick Butkus and the other greats who played there."

Now, more than two decades after he finished his professional playing career, John Sanders gets to live out that dream. Only it won't be John running onto the Memorial Stadium field September 2 when the Illini take on Eastern Illinois in the 2006 home opener. Instead, he will be in the stands watching his son, Justin.

"I am so excited to be here at Illinois," said Justin Sanders as he exhaled in the Illinois recruiting lounge after the long drive up to Champaign from Mississippi with his parents. "I love the atmosphere here, I love the people and I am looking forward to great things for this program."

Growing up in Pearl, Miss., right outside of Jackson, Justin Sanders is the youngest of John and Barbara Sanders' four boys. In a family that had a father play in the NFL, one would imagine that the boys would gravitate towards the pigskin, but with the Sanders boys, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

"I guess my boys were more influenced by Michael Jordan," said John Sanders, reminiscing on how his first three boys found their home on the hardwood. "I loved basketball growing up as well, and I guess that carried on to most of my sons."

"(When I was) growing up, basketball was my first love, and my three older brothers all ended up playing Division I basketball," said Sanders, looking back on his younger days in Pearl. "When I worked out, it was always on the basketball court, but football always came naturally to me. It became apparent, as I grew up, that I was the football player in the family."

Sanders wasn't the only one who figured out quickly that he was a football player.

"The first day that Justin came to our campus from junior high school, you could tell he was going to be a great player," recalled Larry Weems, who coached Sanders at Pearl High School. "He was a smart kid that really wanted to learn and he had a great desire to play the game. Take those qualities and add in his great work ethic, and it shows you why he was a fun guy to coach."

"When I first saw Justin, his explosiveness jumped out at me. He is a kid who has the ability to run, has a good body and likes to hit. The thing that was extremely impressive about him is that he always had a smile on his face. When I went down there to Northeast, people just absolutely loved him. Everyone raved about him and said they wished they had more kids like Justin." Illini DBs coach Curt Mallory

"I remember when I first showed up at Pearl, I was known as Jamal's little brother, and people always referred to me as one of my brother's younger brothers," laughed Sanders. "But having that last name, I also had a reputation to live up to."

As a three-year starter for the football team, Sanders certainly lived up to the lofty expectations, earning the nickname "Hit-Man" for his propensity to drill people. He earned second-team 4A all-state honors in 2003 and also lettered for two years on the varsity basketball team.

In addition to his exploits on the football field and on the hardwood, he learned a skill that will certainly help him make the transition to Illinois and the "downstairs dungeon."

"In high school, I was on our state-champion power lifting team," said Sanders, who said he last maxed out at 340 on the bench, 550 on the squat and 300 on the power clean. "Down there, if you are part of the football team, then you might as well be part of the power lifting team because that means you can lift two times a day."

Even with all that weight training at Pearl, Sanders still was an undersized linebacker coming out of high school. The speed was there, but the size wasn't.

"Growing up in SEC Country, you have to be an SEC type linebacker," said Sanders. "Those guys are usually about 220 (pounds) with 4.4 or 4.5 speed. At the time I was 180 pounds and I couldn't see myself putting on 40 pounds, so I thought the best thing for me was to try strong safety."

Without the big time college offers he had hoped for, Sanders was off to Northeast Mississippi Junior College (NEMJC) in Booneville, a small town in the northeast corner of the state not far from the Tennessee border.

In his first year on the field there, Sanders tallied 40 tackles, two sacks and two interceptions. It wasn't until after that first year that college coaches began taking notice, but Sanders impressed everyone at Northeast immediately with his play and leadership on the field and his personality away from it.

"He has great instincts on the football field and he was the leader in our secondary for two years," said Andy Greening, the head coach at NEMJC. "He was probably the best open-field tackler we had on our defense, and on or off the field, he did everything we asked of him."

Those values on and off the field are things he learned from his family.

"We always talked about character---being a good person---but also having discipline in the heat of battle," said John Sanders. "I believe that coaches look for that type of thing because it tells you a lot about the person."

"My dad has had a huge influence on my life--from the way I play on the field to the way I act on and off the field," said Sanders. "On the field he has always supported me, and since we do play similar positions, he gives me some keys in terms of how to pick up on routes and stuff like that."

"When I first saw Justin, his explosiveness jumped out at me. He is a kid who has the ability to run, has a good body and likes to hit," said his recruiting coach and position coach, Curt Mallory. "The thing that was extremely impressive about him is that he always had a smile on his face. When I went down there to Northeast, people just absolutely loved him. Everyone raved about him and said they wished they had more kids like Justin."

When John Sanders has a chance to watch his son, he sees a lot of similarities in their styles.

"When I look at the film, I can see that he runs a lot like me and some people that have seen us both play tell me that's exactly how I looked when I played," said John Sanders. "I know he can hit people better than I could."

By the time his second year ended at Northeast, Sanders was a hot recruiting commodity. With offers from schools such as Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, and Kentucky, Sanders and his family were sold on Ron Zook and the University of Illinois.

"When Coach Mallory came down to see me, he showed me what Illinois was going to do on defense," recalled Sanders. "I come from a Cover Two scheme where we have two deep safeties and honestly, I was getting bored with it because I felt I could be used better than just playing deep all the time. Coach Mallory showed me how they roll their safeties up and how they blitz their safeties from a lot of different positions. That really stuck out to me."

"Being a solid athlete you would expect coaches to be friendly and kind of always say the right things, but we felt in the midst of all of that he was going to a program where we felt they care for their players people and not just as football players," said John Sanders. "There is certainly an opportunity there to play, but more important, there is an expectation to graduate. Our family felt the promotion at Illinois was genuine and we are looking forward to an exciting two years."

It will be a little more than eight months before Justin Sanders puts on the Illinois helmet and runs out in front of thousands of people at Memorial Stadium. It's a day he and his family have dreamed about, and as he settles into Champaign and meets his teammates, that day seems way too far away.

"I am so ready to step on that field and play football for Illinois," said Sanders, grinning ear-to-ear. "I look around this room (the Illinois recruiting lounge) at all the trophies and I am amazed at some of the names and bowl game trophies, but I know we need to get some new ones in here. Honestly, if the season started tomorrow, it wouldn't be quick enough. I am ready to play right now."