Movement.
It is Deion Sanders’ gift, his universe.
On the football field, in a batter’s box or announcer’s booth, on social media or the sidelines of Folsom Field, movement, whether physical, mental or spiritual, is at the heart of everything he does.
Before he became the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, Sanders, who is now affectionately known as Coach Prime, scored a touchdown in the NFL and a notched a home run in MLB in the same week. He’s the only athlete in professional sports history to play in a Super Bowl and a World Series. He is a first-ballot inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and a two-time All-American in college.
Off the field, his resume is as versatile. He’s been an NFL analyst and embraced social media with a fervent voice – part poet, part preacher – with a rhythmic delivery of motivational quips.
“Master the three W’s,’’ he said in his New York Times Best Selling book, Elevate & Dominate: 21 Ways to Win On and Off the Field. “You got to want it. You got to work it. You got to win it. Now, how bad do you want it?’’
Weeks after arriving in Boulder in December 2022 and nine months before Colorado’s season opener with TCU, Prime gathered a team in his office outside Folsom Field, but the conversation was not about football. It was Coach Prime’s health, especially a piercing pain in his left thigh and nagging pain in his foot.
A year earlier, Coach Prime led Jackson State University to an undefeated season and their second straight Southwestern Athletic Conference championship. In 2022, he coached some games for Jackson State while sitting in a motorized wheelchair and knee scooter on the sidelines. He’d had surgery in Mississippi to remove his big toe and the one next to it on his left foot and spent 30 days in a hospital, lost 30-40 pounds and didn’t recognize himself in the mirror.
“Could you imagine winning in life – I mean flat-out dominating life – and then you get hit, you get blindsided with news that you never would’ve fathomed: that you got to have surgery immediately. Then guess what? They tell you first, we’re going to have to amputate toes. Oh, or your foot, from the knee down. Now your whole leg, or your life,’’ Coach Prime said.
Deion Sanders’ meets with medical experts
Months later, in Coach Prime’s office in Boulder, renowned surgeons from UCHealth, Dr. Don Jacobs and Dr. Max Wohlauer, both vascular experts, and Dr. Kenneth Hunt, a foot and ankle specialist, listened intently.
Coach Prime told them he had pain when riding a stationary bike or doing leg curls or leg extenders. His left foot ached because his third and fourth toes were not straight and rubbed on the top of his shoe, causing friction and pain.
The doctors and Coach Prime made a game plan. The goal was for Coach Prime to run out of the tunnel before the first game at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas.
“I just wanted to run out before my team, like coaches do,’’ Coach Prime said.
Imaging of his left leg showed chronic vascular disease, aneurysms with blood clots in the upper thigh, near the groin. Little pieces of clot had broken off, showering down the artery and plugging it up for some time, said Dr. Jacobs, who is also professor of vascular surgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Doctors went to work to remove the clots and straighten the toes. It was paramount to get the blood, which brings nutrients and oxygen to tissues and muscles, to flow.
Before the surgery, Coach Prime, now 57, said a little prayer.
“Usually, I pray for God’s will to be done,’’ he said. “All those surgeons are very skilled. They know what they’re doing. I don’t question them, because God loves me so much that he would never put somebody incompetent in my space, because I am on a mission for him. I don’t worry about outcomes or anything.
“… I wasn’t upset, I wasn’t threatened, I wasn’t scared, afraid, I wasn’t anything. Let’s do it. I don’t care if you take the toes, I don’t care if you take the whole foot, just make sure that I’m alive, and I’m good.
“Because I’ve got work to do.’’
The age of onset for chronic vascular disease usually occurs in older people. Patients who have smoked, have high blood pressure or diabetes are at high risk. In leg disease specifically, people will notice lack of blood flow when they have pain while exercising – a cramp in the leg. It’s because not enough blood and oxygen are getting to the muscle, and it hurts.
Coach Prime, with his world-class physiology, doesn’t check off any boxes of people most at risk for vascular disease.
“I called my mother when I first got the diagnosis and I said, ‘Ma, do we have a history of blood clots?’ She said, ‘Yeah, I have blood clots and, by the way, your uncle passed away a few years ago from blood clots’, and I said, ‘Well thanks, Mom. I really appreciate that,’’’ he said, chuckling while telling the story to anchor Michael Strahan on Good Morning America.
Deion Sanders’ foot surgery
Dr. Hunt, an orthopedic foot and ankle specialist who is associate professor of the Department of Orthopedics for the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has 16 years’ experience as a foot and ankle surgeon. He’s team physician for the CU Buffs and Denver Nuggets.
“My procedure was to remove a lot of the scar tissue and get the toes straight so that he could fit in his shoe and not have pain,” Hunt said.
After a nine-hour surgery in June 2023, one of the doctors came to Coach Prime while he was still in recovery at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus.
“We put 21 stitches in your groin,’’ a surgeon said, noting the spot where surgeons entered his body with a catheter to clear vessels in his leg.
Coach Prime took it as a sign, delivered from above. During his years in the NFL, Sanders’ jersey number was 21.
Coach Prime and the doctors worked with Nike to create a special, orthotic shoe that has more room in the forefoot for the toes, along with elements to provide balance and arch support.
“The shoe helps tremendously,’’ Sanders said. “I can’t wear any type of shoe, I have to wear a shoe that has a nice bottom to it, that has a tremendous sole. I can barely wear dress shoes, nothing with a hard bottom, anymore. It has to be a rubber bottom that has a thick sole to it,’’ he said.
Coach Prime has had 12 surgeries in all, two at UCHealth, to help him keep moving. He works daily with an outstanding group of physical therapists and athletic trainers to keep his toes straight, tissues compliant, and skin conditioned.
“He’s in a different stratosphere in terms of his talent and his physiology … Working with Coach Prime was unique because of his profile, but he is also one of the most authentic people that I have worked with. He’s real. He’s very thoughtful and was very compliant with treatment. He has a great attitude, and the guy works his tail off,’’ Hunt said.
After all he’s been through medically, Coach Prime has a special message for men: Go to the doctor, get checked out. Coach Prime, who visits with Dr. Rich Penaloza, his primary care doctor, serves as coach for those facing a medical challenge.
“You’re not done yet. You haven’t even reached the tip of the iceberg. You got so much more left in you. This ain’t the time to give up. … this is the time to go. This is the time to put your key in the ignition. It’s time to start your engine.
“This is the time to get on your mark.’’
On Sept. 2, 2023, with the world watching, he ditched a walking boot and laced up an orthotic shoe. He jogged out of the tunnel, his signature gold chain with a gold cross swaying with each step.
“That was joy,’’ he says. “Pure joy, that was pure adrenalin as well.’’
As the score of the game flip-flopped at the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, Coach Prime recalled, “my foot was hurting so bad, it was throbbing, God, it was throbbing.’’
Colorado won the game, 45-42, an upset over a team that played in the college football championship the year before.
In recent weeks, Coach Prime has resumed running. He says he isn’t as fast as he was in the glory days of his professional career, but he boasts that he could still beat most 56-year-old guys.
And he says he might even be able to outrun Ralphie, college football’s best mascot and Boulder’s most popular homegirl. Now that would be a show.
Coach Prime has a lot to look forward to, the season, the growth of those around him and a grandchild in August. Grandpa Prime.
“More than anything, I’m looking forward to movement, progression, growth. We’re designed to move forward, to progress, to go get it.’’
And he will.