"It's Not a Weakness — It's a Strength": How Shelomi Sanders (Daughter of NFL Player Deion Sanders) Turned a Type 1 Diagnosis Into a Mission
Shelomi Sanders was 13 years old and training hard with her dad — yes, that dad, Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders — when her body started sending signals nobody recognized at first. She was losing weight even as she worked out. She was thirsty all the time, and sleepy in a way that didn't make sense for a young athlete.
"I was losing weight," she told USA TODAY Sports, "and I'm like, 'OK, I'm doing this. I guess you know what you're talking about, Prime Time.'"
Her mother, Pilar, suspected something was actually wrong. She was right. One night, after Shelomi threw up the NyQuil her dad had offered as his go-to remedy, she was rushed to the emergency room. Her blood sugar was dangerously high. The diagnosis: type 1 diabetes.
The part nobody warns you about
What came next will sound familiar to almost anyone diagnosed young. There was a "honeymoon phase" where things seemed almost normal. And there was denial.
"When you get diagnosed, they give you these pamphlets and they're like, 'Oh, there's groups and peers that you can talk to,' blah, blah, blah," she says. "But I was just so in denial and I didn't want any help. I didn't want anyone to know that I was a diabetic."
She's candid about why: embarrassment, and the stereotypes that follow the word "diabetes" around. "It's really no off days for a diabetic," she says. "And I don't think people realize that. It's much more than they think."
A decade later: college guard, mentor, advocate
Shelomi is 22 now, the youngest of Deion Sanders' five children, and a guard for Colorado State University Pueblo. She played Division I basketball along the way, with stops at Jackson State, Colorado, and Alabama A&M. Her continuous glucose monitor talks to her phone and her Apple Watch, and her trainers can follow her levels while she's on the court. (Her mom, she admits with a laugh, has been "booted off" the follow app. Her trainers have not.)
She's also one of 27 athletes in Dexcom U, a program for college athletes with diabetes — and this is where her story turns from coping to leading. The girl who once didn't want anyone to know now spends her time telling kids the opposite.
"Just being able to share and connect with other athletes that are going through the same thing I'm going through is probably the most special thing," she says. Her message to young athletes with diabetes is simple: "The diabetes doesn't stop anything. It's just a little bump in the road and not even that. It's not a weakness — if anything, it's a strength."
The numbers suggest that message is landing. A 2026 Dexcom survey found the share of people with type 1 who quit sports after diagnosis has dropped from 24% to 16% in four years, while young adults reporting frequent loneliness fell from 28% to 15%. More than 80% said seeing people with diabetes in sports made them feel more represented, and more than 90% who had a diabetes mentor called it a positive experience.
Family helps — and so does humor
The Sanders family has been, in her words, "super-duper supportive, ever since the jump." Her brother Shedeur, now a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, used to pretend to feel sick so he could ask her to check his blood sugar. Her brother Shilo calls her pancreas her "pancakes" — as in, "your pancakes aren't working anymore." It's teasing, but it's the kind of teasing that makes a condition part of everyday life instead of a secret.
Her practical advice for anyone managing diabetes through sports is equally down to earth: learn your own patterns and build a routine around them. She doesn't eat before games because her levels tend to drop low. And on the rough days: "We have good days, we have bad days, but as long as we just keep on going and we don't let it stop us, it's gonna be OK."
To young people with diabetes, her closing advice works for just about everyone: "Don't let anyone else's opinion mess up how you feel about yourself. We're different — and use that as a strength."
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