With one question, Deion Sanders gave a student reporter a ‘life-changing moment'

New York Times

2 days ago

Deion Sanders has created many viral moments over his career. One in particular resonates for a different reason.
On Sept. 28 last year, Sanders' Colorado Buffaloes had just blown out previously undefeated UCF 48-21 in Orlando. Andrew Cherico, a 21-year-old student reporter, showed up at Sanders' postgame news conference, hoping he could ask a question for his job covering the Knights for a small website, Sons of UCF, that he was interning for.
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When Cherico got called on in, his hands were shaking. His heart was racing. He'd been out at UCF since 8 a.m., and it was now close to 8 p.m. That's a full day for anyone, much less someone confined to a wheelchair, as Cherico has been since he was 9 years old.
'It was like 1,000 degrees that day in Florida, and by the time I asked my question, I was exhausted,' Cherico said. He would end up working a 17-hour day before getting back home at 1 a.m. and was so worn down, he vomited on his way out of the stadium that night (and he didn't want work to know).
Before the conference began, Cherico tried to position himself in the best spot he could to get called on. He had started going over his question in his head before the game ended. He decided he would try to ask Sanders how Colorado was able to shut down R.J. Harvey and the nation's leading rushing attack.
Sanders began to answer Cherico's question about the Buffs' run defense, but then stopped and focused on the reporter.
'I'm proud of you and your resilience and what you go through on a daily basis,' Sanders told Cherico. 'I'm so darn proud of you, you have no idea. Because I was in a (wheel) chair at one point with these toes being amputated. And I know what you deal with on a daily basis. I had to change my whole bathroom and put rails in so I could even get on the darn toilet, man. So I understand, and I'm proud of you man, truly.'
Wow, I'm blessed beyond belief to have witnessed @DeionSanders giving me a shoutout telling me he's proud of me and all the work I do especially with the adversity I deal with from my physical disability. Thank you Coach Prime it means the world. 🙏🏼
Growing up with a disability… pic.twitter.com/5OIJUzrVPN
— Andrew Cherico (@Andrew_Cherico) September 29, 2024
Cherico couldn't believe what he had heard.
'I felt every butterfly in my stomach crawl up to me,' he said. 'And that's when all the people started turning their heads around in the room to me — OK, yeah, he's really talking about me right now. I'm not going crazy.'
Cherico was born with spinal muscular atrophy. Technically, he has what is known as SMA Type 3, a neuromuscular disability that affects all the muscles in his body. He was able to walk until he was 9, but it's a progressive disease that first caused him to go into a manual wheelchair, then a wheelchair with assistants, and then the power wheelchair he relies on now.
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'Thankfully, modern medicine has halted the progression of it,' he said.
His dad put him in front of the TV with a New York Jets jersey on when he was only 2. Andrew always loved sports, especially the competitive aspect of it, but he was also aware he would never get to play for the Jets someday or play in the NBA like Michael Jordan. By the time he was 6, his aunt, listening to the little boy rattle off all sorts of sports statistics, told him, 'Some day, you're gonna be a sports broadcaster.'
He'd listen to Gary Cohen call Mets games and Kevin Harlan and Ian Eagle do football and basketball games, and by the time he was 10, he'd come up with his dream job and believed he could do everything they could. But his true role models, he said, are his parents (his father is a retired NYPD detective and his mother is a nurse's assistant), who always motivated him to keep going.
Wheelchair or not, they never wanted Andrew to feel separated from the community despite whatever challenges he faced. He graduated from a school in New York for students with disabilities in a class of only about 15. The college he chose to go to, UCF, has 70,000 students.
There was a lot of culture shock when he first got to college, but he picked UCF because he loved the warm weather, the city of Orlando and the energy of the school that first caught his eye in 2017 when Scott Frost led the Knights to a 14-0 record. He and his parents moved to Florida in 2023, after he took a gap year.
Andrew wasn't sure of the best way to try to break into the business, but in April 2023, he started a Twitter account.
'I was tweeting to nobody for the first two or three months,' he said. 'But I just knew that this is what I wanted to do, and eventually, I started picking up a few people along the way, and people started to enjoy my work.'
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Sons of UCF, an independent site dedicated to covering all things UCF Knights, noticed Cherico wanted to be a journalist and asked if he wanted to get involved. He was all in.
'We're a small outfit,' said Adam Eaton, the site's founder. 'It's just two of us.'
Cherico's job with Sons of UCF was a paid internship in which he got college credit and a stipend every month for his 20-plus hours of work. It helped that his dad could drive him to all the games and practices. It also helped that Andrew's outgoing nature enables him to connect easily with all sorts of people.
'The thing with Andrew is that he's been counted out his entire life,' Eaton said. 'We don't tell him no. If he has an idea and wants to do something, we figure out ways to support him and let him do it. I'd always tell him, 'Tell us what your plan is, how you want to get it done and what you need from us, and we'll support you.' And he makes it work. Luckily, the community of UCF has really embraced him.'
This summer, Cherico was hired by 247Sports' UCF site, Knights247 — a bigger platform and a move up the career ladder. This week, he traveled out of state for the first time for his job, covering the Big 12 Media Days in Frisco, Texas. Air travel is the biggest challenge for him. Whenever he has to get on a plane, he tries to arrive at the gate three hours early. He has to speak with the airport's ramp supervisor about transporting his motorized wheelchair, which costs $30,000. He always brings instructions with the chair. He's heard so many stories of wheelchairs being broken or damaged.
'These,' he said, referencing his chair, 'are these people's lives. Without this chair, we are stuck.'
It's only part of what makes air travel such a hassle. He can't use an airplane bathroom. And when he lands, getting a wheelchair-accessible taxi can often take longer than the flight. He said he called 20 different cab companies around the DFW area to try to get a ride before he found someone who was able to recommend a driver who could assist him, and that person was in Fort Worth. His first night in Dallas, he went out to get dinner and called the driver he had used earlier. He was in the car for eight minutes, and he said the trip cost him $75.
'Whenever I go somewhere, I always have a Plan A, B and C,' he said. 'When I got here, I had a Plan A and a Plan B and both of those failed, so I was kinda stuck. I didn't even know if I was gonna be able to make it here.'
The further he gets into chasing his dream, the more Andrew has come to believe that this is all much bigger than him, that his real drive is to inspire people like him. A few weeks before he flew to Texas, he went to Disneyland in California to speak at a three-day conference with panels for people dealing with SMA, the neurological disease he has. There were several hundred people in attendance. After he spoke and shared his story, a few parents approached him, telling him how inspiring he is and wanting him to talk to their kids.
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'There are so many people like me that don't get a voice, that feel trapped in their bubble,' he said. 'I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life. I can't get out of bed on my own, can't go to the bathroom. But I still find a way to make it happen, and I want them to know that they can, too, with just a bit of faith and hope. I'm just trying to go through life as a regular person chasing my dream. '
As he tells his story of what it's been like to chase his life's dream while continuing to realize how steep his climb will be, it's hard for him not to get emotional.
'My end goal is to really use my platform to hopefully reach a professional level and get some recognition that I can inspire other people with my disability to see that it is possible that you can pursue the career that you want,' he said. 'You may need to work a little bit harder; you may need to position yourself in certain ways, but it is possible.
'I want to do all these things, but then sometimes life just hits me a little bit. Like a ton of bricks sometimes. It's unfortunate, knowing that I'm ready for the world, but the world isn't ready for a guy like me.'
He wasn't going to let anything stop him from getting to Dallas. The school he covers has a new coach (well, its old coach — Frost — has come back). There are also so many people he wanted to meet. He also wanted to try to see Sanders, to thank him for a 'life-changing moment.'
The day after Sanders' comments at UCF last year, Cherico had posted about 'the really cool moment.' 'I'd hit click and hundreds of retweets started coming in about it,' said Cherico, who had played as Sanders in the Madden video games for years. One of the new followers he picked up after his post was Sanders.
On the second day of Big 12 Media Days, Sanders, with Colorado, arrived in Frisco, and Cherico got his chance to speak with the Pro Football Hall of Famer and tell him what his words meant to him.
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Sanders told The Athletic it was great to see Cherico in Texas.
'It's just to see him smiling and doing his thing,' he said. 'It takes a lot to get here, and we take it for granted. My hat is off and my prayers are for him. That is unbelievable what he is accomplishing.'
Cherico said seeing Sanders reminds him that he belongs here in the media space, pursuing his dreams; that he can do this job, even though he was probably one of the youngest people in the room that day and the only person with a physical disability.
'Even when I'm getting beat down by the world and when I feel like I may not be able to pursue this career, because I can't be as quick as everybody else pulling out my tripod, that I can't get my microphone out as fast, or that I have to find adequate space so I can set up my questions,' he said. 'But then, I have a situation like that with Deion Sanders, and it reminds me that I can do this. It reminds me that this field, that no matter what, with my mindset, I can make something happen.'
(Top photo of Sanders at the UCF postgame conference in 2024: Don Juan Moore / Getty Images)