JACKSON, Miss. — Grease-stained brown paper bags filled the counter at Stamps Super Burgers, a tiny burger joint near the campus of Jackson State, and the orders kept coming and coming.
But it wasn’t a change in recipe bringing a spike in orders.
Since the arrival of the university’s high-profile head football coach, the Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, in September 2020, local businesses like Stamps, which Sanders highlighted in an Instagram post, have seen a surge in exposure and business.
Jackson State’s on-field turnaround since Sanders’s arrival has been just as rapid. The program, which plays at the Football Championship Subdivision level in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, was once a perennial powerhouse among historically Black colleges and universities.