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LANCASTER, Texas — When the moment arrived, Deion Sanders wore not a suit or a tie like his freshly elected peers. Nor did he sit with them in the NFL Network studio at the Super Bowl media center in Dallas.

When the moment arrived, the Fort Myers native wore cleats and stood on a mud-caked youth football field. A black whistle hung around his neck. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt, embroidered in red with one word on it: Truth.

When the moment of great acclaim arrived just after 7:30 p.m. Saturday, the 1985 North Fort Myers High School graduate had just finished coaching 13, 14 and 15-year-old children. They were on the losing end of a 57-12 score against rapper Snoop Dogg’s teams from Los Angeles.

Snoop Dogg fielded the official phone call that delivered the news.

“I would like to say,” Snoop Dogg said through a miniature microphone, “will everybody please welcome Deion Sanders to the 2011 NFL Hall of Fame!”

A driver soon whisked Sanders and his immediate family away for a 20-mile drive to the Super Bowl media center in Dallas.

Sanders didn’t even have time to change. He joined four Hall of Fame players on stage, including the newly elected tight end Shannon Sharpe and running back Marshall Faulk.

“Next to the Bible, my favorite book was The Little Engine That Could,” Sanders said. “I read that story so many times, I know it by heart. And a couple trains passed that engine until he started saying to himself: ‘I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.’ And that’s what I modeled my career after. I mean, it sounds arrogant, it sounds brash, it sounds cocky. But it was real.”

An eight-time All-Pro cornerback, Sanders played for five teams over the course of 14 seasons. He won two Super Bowl rings. His induction is set for Sunday, Aug. 6, in Canton, Ohio. He will be the first Southwest Florida native to be inducted into a major sports’ hall of fame.