Nelson’s Corner | February 2025

Don’t let the tailgate hit you on the way out.

I may be the only person in Boulder County who fervently hopes that Deion Sanders, aka Coach Prime, is lured from CU by the Dallas Cowboys. According to multiple reports, Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones and Prime have been chatting. Perhaps by the time this Yellow Scene (YS) issue hits the street it will be a done deal. Perhaps it won’t.

Prime Time is a prime example of what ails college sports and higher education more broadly. Nothing personal, although Prime won’t read this or care.

Prime’s initial contract was for $29 million over five years. That level of compensation is obscene in any context, but at a tax-exempt institution it should be illegal. He is paid by and through the athletic department. CU tries to dodge scrutiny by contractually stating that he is paid by revenue from “auxiliary activities,” but that revenue is also tax-exempt.

At a time when affirmative action is essentially illegal, it would be fascinating to see the credentials of the athletes who flooded into Boulder through the transfer portal. The Supreme Court essentially outlawed affirmative action, but I suspect that football players, be they minorities or not, are getting a free pass with much lower academic credentials. I wonder how many Buff fans who are otherwise opposed to affirmative action would turn a blind eye to this preferential treatment.

Prime Time is an entertaining phenomenon, but higher education is not entertainment.  Deion Sanders is a colorful character and, from what I’ve read, he is a decent enough guy and he was certainly a fine athlete.  But the adulation is absurd.  I’ve read enough and heard enough to be sure that his “wisdom” is platitudes and homilies, not profound insights.

More serious is that a public university turns a blind eye to the flagrant religiosity Sanders brings to the program. I can well imagine the discomfort an aspiring Jewish, Muslim or atheist football player might feel in a program so steeped in Christianity.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has twice tried to intervene.  On September 25, 2024 they wrote:

“(We are) again writing to the University of Colorado after learning that Coach Deion Sanders is continuing to intertwine his religion with his duties as head football coach.

“Sanders has persisted in entangling the university’s football program with religion and engaging in religious exercises with students and staff. A video showed Sanders after the Sept. 22 game once again making religious remarks and holding a team prayer in the locker room. Sanders appears to have invited Pastor E. Dewey Smith from the House of Hope Church in Atlanta to deliver the following prayer:

“‘God, we thank you tonight for victory, thank you that you kept us relatively safe. Thank you that in spite of our imperfections you still blessed us, Lord. And thank you for being with us to the end. Lord, some people call it Hail Mary, some people call it karma, some people call it luck, but in my faith tradition, we call it Jesus. Grace, thank you for your mercy, bless us, help us to grow from this, learn from this, and take it to the next level. We give you praise, we thank you, in your name we pray, amen.’”

While Sanders and most of his players and staff may be Christian, one can only imagine if this kind of overt violation took place before, during and after an undergraduate history class. There is no meaningful difference. A football locker room is not distinct from any other university classroom.

I like a good football game as much as the next guy, but it is far past the time when Division IDI sports, at least football and basketball, stop the charade. A step was taken through the Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) deals that are making selected college athletes very rich, including Prime’s son, CU QB Shedeur Sanders.

Take the next step and establish minor league franchises for football and basketball.  If the rare elite player also wants to be a student, she or he can separately enroll in classes at the local college.

That would be far more honest. They could pay celebrity coaches what the market demands and pray to their hearts’ content.