Barry Sanders

Barry Sanders (born July 16, 1968) is a former American football running back who spent his entire professional career with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League. A member of both the college and professional football halls of fame, he was ranked by NFL Top 10 as the most elusive runner in NFL history, and also topped their list of greatest players never to reach the Super Bowl. Averaging over 1,500 rushing yards per season, Sanders left the game just 1,457 yards short of being first place on the list for the NFL all-time rushing record at that time.

Early years

Born in Wichita, Kansas, Sanders attended Wichita North High School. Sanders started at tailback his sophomore year, but his brother Byron started before him in that position the following year. Barry Sanders did not become the starting running back until the fourth game of his senior year. He rushed for 1,417 yards in the final seven games of the season, which earned him all-state honors. During that seven-game span, Sanders averaged 10.2 yards per carry, but he was overlooked by most college recruiters. Although he was a stellar athlete, Sanders received scholarship offers from only Emporia State University, University of Tulsa, and Oklahoma State University-Stillwater.

Barry Sanders (professor)

Barry Sanders Ph.D. is a non-fiction author, eccentric academic, and college professor.

Sanders was a professor at Pitzer College, member of the Claremont Colleges in Southern California, for over 30 years. He currently teaches at Pacific Northwest College of Art, and is a contributing editor at the North American Review.

Academic and writing career

Sanders received an MS from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1960, and an MA from USC—University of Southern California in 1963. He earned a doctorate in Medieval literature from USC in 1966.

Sanders joined the faculty at Southern Illinois University, and helped students start a radical newspaper to protest the war in Vietnam and organized a three-day teach-in. He received death threats and a request from administrators to take his talents elsewhere. A stint at Valley State College (CSUN) in California ended the same way, Sanders was fired in 1971 not long after being arrested at an anti-war protest along with 200 students.