PHILADELPHIA — Alabama A&M University has a slogan: “Start here. Go anywhere.”
Little did Marlon Sanders Jr. know a few years ago that would mean the Super Bowl.
Sanders is a video assistant for the Philadelphia Eagles and is in Glendale, Ariz., with the NFL team for Sunday’s Super Bowl LXVII.
But, when he started at Alabama A&M in 2015, the Mobile native had plans to walk on the football team.
“I wasn’t highly recruited but I thought I could play at the next level,” Sanders said. “I wanted to walk on at A&M.”
However, as moms are wont to do, Sanders’ mom didn’t go for that strategy.
“She said if I didn’t have a scholarship, I was there to concentrate on school,” he said.
Then, fate stepped in.
Sanders said he missed playing football but, in the spring, “the football team tweeted they were looking for videographers. I reached out.”
He and roommate Da’Vonta Ealy (who then-head coach James Spady said was the best “recruit” he ever had) joined the video crew. For the next four seasons, he videotaped practices, games and whatever else the coaching staff needed.
But, Sanders wasn’t able to take his craft with him right after A&M and didn’t think there was an opportunity for him.
Fate stepped in again.
“Da’Vonta (who had interned with Washington in 2018) called me and said, ‘You can do this in the NFL,'” Sanders said.
So, he accepted an internship with the University of South Alabama in his hometown. “I just wanted to stay in the business,” Sanders said.
The Senior Bowl is played every year in Mobile and every NFL team is there to scout the players. Sanders helped the Miami Dolphins and Carolina Panthers film during the week.
Then, taking Ealy’s suggestion, he began reaching out to NFL teams.
Here’s fate, again.
“I called Patrick Dolan (vice president of football technology for the Eagles),” Sanders said. “And he said, ‘I’m glad you called. I was just about to call you.’
“I got an interview the next week.”
He moved up from an intern with the team to his position as video assistant.
“We record and film practices and games (from the endzone) and other things coaches, scouts and players need,” Sanders said. “Anything and everything.”
His former roommate is a video assistant with the Baltimore Ravens. That’s not too bad: Two Alabama A&M roommates working for NFL teams.
Sanders said he and Ealy stay in touch.
“We talk a lot, almost every day,” he said.
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