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CNN This Morning

University of Idaho Victim Had Stalker; Bomani Jones is Interviewed about Sanders Leaving Jackson State; Goblin Mode Chosen for 2022 Word of the Year. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 06, 2022 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone, to CNN THIS MORNING. It is a rainy election day again. And if you're in Georgia, they're probably going again and again and again. I mean the election day, not the rain.

Right now voters are lining up to cast their ballots in the Senate runoff rematch pitting Democratic Incumbent Raphael Warnock against Republican challenger Herschel Walker. He is a football legend, but now Deion Sanders is being called a sellout for leaving as coach of a historically black university to coach a division one school. We're going to talk to Bomani Jones about that just moments away.

And Oxford Dictionaries has chosen the word of the year for 2022. Is it Lemon? Is it Poppy? Is it Collins?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: A Lemon Poppy Collin.

LEMON: We're going to tell you straight ahead. Could be any one of those.

HARLOW: Yes, maybe that.

All right, well, turning the page here to a very serious and sad story we continue to follow here on CNN THIS MORNING,

Police are investigating the murder of four University of Idaho students and they are looking into the possibility, we've learned this morning, that one of those students had a stalker. They say there was a situation in October where it appeared a man was following Kaylee Goncalves.

Our Veronica Miracle is on the ground in Moscow, Idaho, with more.

Veronica, thanks for being there.

I mean this would be very significant because they've failed to really have many, if any, leads.

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy, throughout this investigation there has been talk that Kaylee Goncalves may have had a stalker. That October incident, they're saying, is no longer -- they can say it is not related, but they continue to look into the possibility.

Meanwhile, desperate family members are just desperate for answers right now.

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MIRACLE (voice over): It's been more than three weeks since the murders of four University of Idaho students, and police are starting to receive toxicology reports on the victims' hair, fibers, blood and DNA, according to law enforcement. All considered critical evidence from the crime scene.

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The case remains unsolved. Police still have not found a murder weapon or named a suspect, frustrating at least one of the families of the victims. The father of Kaylee Goncalves is speaking out, making an appearance on "Fox Sunday Morning."

STEVE GONCALVES, FATHER OF MURDERED STUDENT: I do not feel confident. And that's why I pushed the envelope and say a little bit more. I hate to be that guy. But, you know, there's a job to do for -- everybody has a job and a role to play in this. This is my role as the parent.

MIRACLE: Goncalves saying he is trying to make sense of the information that police have given him.

GONCALVES: I can kind of tell by my daughter's text messages, she didn't call 911. She wasn't saying anything along the lines of like she had heard something or she was in fear. So, I'm just putting the dots together.

As far as the investigators, they're very tight lipped and they're keeping everything close to their vest. And I understand that.

MIRACLE: But investigators saying they are trying to provide information while protecting the integrity of the investigation, saying in a statement, we firmly believe speculation and unvetted information is a disservice to the victims, their families and our community.

The stabbing deaths of these four students has created turmoil at the university, and in the quiet community of Moscow that hasn't recorded a single murder since 2015. On Friday, at a memorial service, a local pastor read letters from two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke.

CHRIS GWINN, PASTOR, REAL LIFE MINISTRIES: And this is from Bethany. Madi, Kaylee, Xana and Ethan were truly all one of a kind. They all lit up any room they walked into and were gifts to this world.

MIRACLE: Expressing the sentiments of so many others who have gathered to honor the victims.

GWINN: I just want you to know that I will always love you and miss you forever.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MIRACLE: Police did reiterate to me that information discussed this weekend has not been released by them. It's not been released by investigators. They are still keeping things tight here in order to protect the integrity of this investigation.

Poppy.

HARLOW: Gosh, those parents all deserve answers.

Veronica, thank you.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, we have a big conversation coming up. Deion Sanders is leaving Jackson State to coach the Colorado Buffalos. The move, though, has sparked a little bit of criticism after many thought he was changing the landscape of sports at those colleges known as historically black colleges and universities.

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DEION SANDERS, FORMER JACKSON STATE COACH: (INAUDIBLE). And when I get here, it's going to be change. So, I want you all to get ready.

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DEION SANDERS, NEW HEAD FOOTBALL COACH, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: We're going to have one of the best coaching staffs assembled, some of the best scouts, some of the best kids that we're recruiting, and commitments already coming underway as I speak.

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LEMON: So that is new University of Colorado Head Football Coach Deion Sanders, promising fans and his new players that he is going to bring the winning culture he established at Jackson State, an HBCU and Mississippi, to his new team.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about that?

DEION SANDERS, NEW HEAD FOOTBALL COACH, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, how about that?

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: So, Sanders is now being criticized as a so-called sellout for leaving Jackson after many envisioned him altering the landscape of sports at historically black colleges and universities. He did land top recruits. He went 27-5 in three seasons and just won the school's second Southwestern Athletic Conference title in two years. Sanders will now try to replicate that success in more competitive league -- a more competitive league with a Colorado team that just went 1-11.

So, joining us now, the perfect person to talk about that, Bomani Jones, a third generation HBCU graduate who went to Clark Atlanta University. He's also the host of "Game Theory with Bomani Jones," which will kick off its second season on HBO and HBO Max in January.

Wow, that is a giant lead-in to you. You have lots of accomplishments.

Thank you this morning.

So, you know, this is -- I kind of feel like we're talking about family business like in front of everybody, you know what I'm talking about, because there's been a long - there's a long tradition in the African American community about HBCUs and whether you go, whether you're not, and what - and this. Why can't Deion Sanders just choose to be with who he wants to be picked (ph)?

BOMANI JONES, HOST, HBO MAX "GAME THEORY WITH BOMANI JONES": Oh, he can go take whatever job he wants. But when you come into the first job and sell the idea that you are going to be the savior of HBCUs and you are going to raise the playing field, not just for Jackson State, but for everybody else, and you go and do it, because God told you to do it.

HARLOW: He -- he said that, yes.

JONES: Yes, he said that. He explicitly said that God sent him to do this. So then, when you leave, yes, people are going to ask questions about what exactly it was.

Now, I don't go into the sellout place necessarily, but I do think - I mean he's the monorail salesman from "The Simpsons." He went in. He sold the big dream. Now, if you paid any attention, you knew the dream he was selling wasn't possible. It was not an achievable one that he had. But he sold it and he got people to believe it and then he (INAUDIBLE).

LEMON: So you know Shannon Sharpe, right?

JONES: Yes.

LEMON: So he - and you've heard his comments, I'm sure.

JONES: Yes.

LEMON: I want to play them for our audience because he - Shannon Sharpe has a - sort of a rising tide lifts all boats. If he did it for Jackson State, then maybe that helped the entire HBCU. Let's play this and I want your response to it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANNON SHARPE, NFL HALL OF FAMER: Deion did something that very few coaches are able to do. He leveraged his relationship skill. No football team had more uniform than Jackson State except the University of Oregon. Under Armour, every single week, they got new helmets, they got new unis. He did this with Walmart. He took 150,000 of his salary and helped finish building the facilities.

SKIP BAYLESS: He did.

SHARPE: He leveraged his relationship with American Airlines. He brought eyes to HBCUs, Skip. There was nobody talking about HBCUs, especially now. They're talking about them. They're on television. That's because of him.

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He gave you a blueprint. Now follow the blueprint.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He's saying, basically, mission accomplished. What do you think?

JONES: Well, I mean, part of it -- and I love Shannon to death. Part of where I disagree with him is, so much of that was single to Deion Sanders. Like, we do have to admit that he is the charismatic individual. Like, just because Deion could do it doesn't mean that everybody else can do it. That's the first part.

The second thing, they're going to play in the Celebration Bowl, I believe, next week in Atlanta against the champions of the MEAC. They played in that bowl game last year. South Carolina State blew their doors off in that game. Do you know the head coach of South Carolina State? Can you name a single player at South Carolina State? I can't. It brought attention to Deion. It brought attention to Jackson State. You weren't going to bring attention to all these other schools in the time period that he was there. Like, if he was really going to accomplish that, that's a ten-year program, at least.

HARLOW: You're saying he had to stay.

JONES: Yes.

HARLOW: And so it was - "60 Minutes" profiled him, just like a month or two ago, and it was on that program he said, I believe that God called me collect and I had to accept the charges. And then he said this. Let's play it.

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DEION SANDERS, NEW HEAD FOOTBALL COACH, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: It's a lot of folks sit back on the - with Twitter fingers and talk about what they're going to do and - and I wanted to go do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do what?

SANDERS: Change lives. Change the perspective of HBCU football. Make everyone step up to the plate and do what's right by these kids.

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HARLOW: Didn't he do that, at least by starting it? And now, as Shannon was saying, is it up to others to carry it forward?

JONES: I mean if you can go find another Deion Sanders, right? Like, that's the thing of this is that, if he was going - if you're talking about establishing something long-term, right, something that is sustainable, the idea, he got it started, now you go do it, I don't think --

LEMON: Aren't you making his blueprint argument because there are others who are maybe in the NFL, or former NFL players, who have -- who are charismatic -

HARLOW: Who could do it?

LEMON: And who could step in to other HBCUs?

JONES: Deion Sanders has spent the last 35 years telling us there ain't but one Deion Sanders. And now he's telling us, go find somebody else to do what Deion Sanders does. You can't have this both ways. I don't judge him for taking the job at Colorado. They probably increased his salary by something like 15 times, right? I totally get that. It all makes sense.

But what he did was something that college coaches do all the time, which is, you have to sell people four year, ten year plans, when your plan is always one year at a time. That's the only way that you can really pull that off.

And so he came and he sold a long-term vision for what was going on at Jackson State, but his goals and ambitions were always to be a power five head coach.

My take has always been, he went to Jackson State primarily because he wanted to be a head coach but didn't want to ever be anybody's assistant coach. So, he had to find somebody that would give him a job and make him a head coach and so he could have that on his resume and then he could take that to try to get the job that he actually wanted. Jackson State was the place that could do it. And he did a lot of good work while he was at Jackson State. But all the bigger, grandiose notions of what he was doing for somebody else, no, it was what it always is, he did it for Deion. And that's fine if you don't tell us that you're trying to do this for somebody else.

COLLINS: But can't he do both? Can't he go to a program and be there for three years, only have five losses, like he did, and bring the attention? Maybe the next person won't be, you know, primetime, they won't be as charismatic as he is, but he still did bring attention to it. And what I've seen from the athletic director and other people is, they were grateful for him. JONES: Oh, no.

COLLINS: And they talked about him going on and something he signaled because of the financial disparities here.

JONES: No, he's very good. But I think the magnitude of the financial disparity is so much greater than anybody realizes. I think the magnitude of the financial disparity between HBCUs and other FCS schools, the smaller division than division one, is bigger than people realize it is.

So, there's room to criticize him for the way that he has left and for the fact that his initial rhetoric is not in line with his ultimate decision.

LEMON: Bomani, then what would you have him do? What would you have the man do?

JONES: What would I - oh, well, I wouldn't have come in the first place and said that God sent me here to fix HBCUs and God decided that in the middle of it he was supposed to leave? Right? I mean, like, the thing I've said is, maybe got wants 10 percent of 5 mill and not 10 percent of 375. And God can do math. I can understand why it is. He told a dream and then walked out on the dream. People have the right to be critical of that.

I also would have taken the job that he took at Colorado, right? It's not a judgment of the fact that he took the job. But this is not in line with what he told us for all these years.

COLLINS: But the reason I'm glad we're having this conversation is because it does highlight those massive financial disparities. And so I guess the question is, not just do you have to hire a charismatic coach who brings attention to your program to fix it, what's the other way to fix it?

JONES: The problem that we have here is, if you watched, especially during the pandemic, when everybody had all their crypto money and you had all these different schools, they were like, you, we now have more billionaires donating to our schools. Plural. Billionaires. Because that's what makes this work really is those donations and big television deals. That's where the money comes from.

We got eight black billionaires in the United States and you can name six of them, right? Like, you may not know it off the top of your head, but they're all people that you know. The initial capital that is necessary, that's the hard part. As a school like Jackson State, in a city that's been choked off by state of Mississippi for as long as anybody can remember, and underfunded for as long as anybody can remember, the money they need and the things they need to be done, football is not the place where we're going to start with this in the first place.

[08:50:03]

And at some point we have to ask ourselves, does it matter whether or not the football team is great? Does it matter. Because everything that people were doing and giving money to (INAUDIBLE) these players that they now thought could go to the NFL could be done for all the players that they have anywhere, even if they're not as good at football as the ones that Deion Sanders had.

LEMON: This is so weird for me because we used to talk about this sitting around the table as a kid. I live blocks from Southern University.

JONES: Right.

LEMON: And everybody's Southern (INAUDIBLE) in my family. So this is so weird to be having this conversation --

HARLOW: At this table?

LEMON: At this table about HBCUs and the athletic program.

HARLOW: We love having you.

LEMON: Thank you.

JONES: No, I appreciate it.

HARLOW: Come back soon.

LEMON: Yes. Come back every week, as often as possible.

HARLOW: Thank you, Bomani, very, very much.

And everyone should watch Bomani's show, "Game Theory with Bomani Jones." It kicks off a second season on HBO and HBO Max in January.

Next, this morning's number is 93. We will tell you what it is for right here on CNN this morning.

What is it? I don't know.

COLLINS: These are -

LEMON: Oh, I -

HARLOW: What?

LEMON: So -

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COLLINS: All right, the votes are in. Oxford opened up its choice of the 2022 award of the year to online voters. The first time, actually, that they did that in history. The word of the year is, quote, goblin mode, defined as a type of behavior which is unapologetically self- indulge, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations. So, to bring in to talk more about this, let's bring in CNN's senior

data reporter Harry Enten with this morning's number.

Harry, a, it's two words, but, b, tell us why this is the word of the year.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: OK. So, you know, they opened it up to voting, and what do we see here? We see that 93 percent of those who voted in the poll voted for goblin mode, beating out the #Istandwith and the metaverse.

You know, you were hinting at what exactly goblin mode is. And it's basically this unapologetically, self-indulgent lazy behavior. It's a response to this idea of on social media everyone's, you know, putting on makeup all the time, making things look so good. So it's the anti- idealizing of oneself for social media by rejecting social norms and expectations.

And why do people enter goblin mode? Because look at the studies. Social media is associated with exacerbating depression. The people who are their true selves online tend to be happier. So, people want to be happier, so they're going goblin mode.

COLLINS: All right, Harry, words of wisdom.

HARLOW: Two words.

LEMON: So that would be like something like we've never heard of before.

HARLOW: Like ever heard of.

LEMON: I mean we just call that fake you know what.

ENTEN: Be you.

COLLINS: Harry, thanks for that. Goblin mode in everyone's lexicon now.

LEMON: Thank you.

COLLINS: And CNN "NEWSROOM" is going to start right after this break. Thanks for joining us this morning.

LEMON: And they're not goblins or goblin mode.

HARLOW: See you tomorrow.

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