Would you give your left foot to coach the Buffs?
Brent Venables aside, nobody with half a soul wishes Deion Sanders ill health. You do worry, though, when a guy who used to run Jerry Rice into the stinking ground starts looking like he might lose a race to CU icon Peggy Coppom, nearly 100 years young.
“Actually, I’m not concerned,” Buffs chancellor Phil DiStefano told me Wednesday, a few hours after CU announced that Coach Prime would be skipping Pac-12 Media Day because of another surgery.
“His first surgery went extremely well — it was at the medical center that’s part of the University of Colorado. He’s going back (Thursday) and I think as most of us have seen, he’s been in great spirits and he’s feeling good about the first surgery. And I think the second one is going to be as successful.”
Coach Prime is the best thing to happen to CU football since Kordell Stewart’s Miracle at Michigan. But for a guy whose default mode is shifting into fifth gear at everything he’s ever attempted, the risk of burnout feels awfully real. And awfully early.
“He’ll miss (Pac-12) Media Day,” DiStefano continued, “but for me, I want him ready for that first day of practice.”
That said, fixing the Buffs ain’t worth losing a limb, either.
Thursday’s surgery will be Sanders’ second in three months. Coach Prime doesn’t mind cracking wise about his scooters, but blood clots on a 55-year-old man, even one who also happened to be among the greatest athletes of his generation, are no joke.
Sanders revealed on Instagram last month that he needed surgery to remove said clots in order to improve the blood flow that would allow for two more procedures — one on his left foot and to repair two hammer toes.
“I promise you when we go to TCU (on Sept. 2), I’m running out in front of our team,” Sanders said in an Instagram video. “I promise you that.”
Coach Prime has been a man of his word so far, for better or for worse. And at least the Buffs are prepared for the worst-case, if it ever comes to that: Assistant coach Gary “Flea” Harrell has head-man chops, going 3-0 at Jackson State in 2021 as an emergency interim coach while Sanders recovered from foot surgery, and posting a 20-36 record over five seasons at Howard. New offensive coordinator Sean Lewis went 24-31 as a head coach for five seasons at Kent State, one of the runts of the MAC, leading the Golden Flashes to a pair of bowl appearances along the way.
Sanders’ CU contract features a retirement provision, if you’re curious. It also says that if Coach Prime is absent for more than five “consecutive scheduled working days and has not contacted the Athletics Director to provide reason for the absence,” that CU may “construe” the absence as voluntary termination.
“It’s not a concern of mine,” DiStefano continued. “As I said, he’s in very good spirits. And I have the utmost confidence, and he does too, in the doctors that (are working with him). So I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.”
Coach Prime took the gig at CU, in part, because it was developing the reputation as the world’s prettiest football graveyard. Over the last 25 years and seven coaches, only Mel Tucker (2019) and Rick Neuheisel (1998) have parlayed their tenures in Boulder as a springboard to something “better.” You just hope Sanders gets a chance to plant enough seeds at Folsom Field before the ground swallows him whole.
