Former pro athlete Deion Sanders is a single father who, along with raising his own children, has taken on a sort of surrogate role for many of the students at Prime Prep Academy, the charter school he helped co-found.
When one of Deion's student athletes, whom he calls "Shorty Lo," confides that he and his mom have been struggling, Deion decides to help. In the above clip from OWN's new docu-series, "Deion's Family Playbook," he meets Shorty Lo's mom.
"Their dad is not in their life," she mom tells Deion. "And you don't know what I went through."
She tells Deion that when she heard of Prime Prep Academy, a school that aims to help children in underserved areas, she pulled out all the stops to get her kids there.
"Because I felt like if I didn't get him from where he was at, I was either going to a funeral home or to a jail," she says.
Shortly Lo's mom goes on to tell Deion how much warmth they've felt at the school. "But it's been hard," she says. Breaking down into tears, she tells Deion she doesn't have a job and that she and her son have been sleeping on the floor.
Stopping her, Deion pulls out a check. While Deion chose to keep the amount of the check between him and the mother, her emotional reaction in the above clip says it all.
"Deion's Family Playbook" premieres Saturday, March 1 at 10 p.m. ET on OWN.
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