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BOULDER, Col. — Deion Sanders does not need to coach football.

It’s true. He doesn’t. He has money in the bank and did long before he signed his current $6-million-per-year contract with the University of Colorado. If he wanted, he could go back to being a television analyst. He could write another book. He could star in another reality show. He could do like every other living sports legend and cash in on memorabilia shows every weekend, signing Falcons, Niners, Cowboys, Braves and Yankees jerseys, one of his six Sports Illustrated covers or maybe one of the CDs recorded with MC Hammer back in the day.

But instead, he has chosen to keep plowing on what is perhaps the most difficult and certainly the most nonstop round-the-clock-and-calendar job in collegiate athletics, the head coach of a publicly backed state flagship FBS Power 5 university football program.

“People ask me all the time, ‘How you doing, man?’ and my answer is simple,” the 56-year old College Football Hall of Famer explains. “I’m doing great. I just ain’t sleeping because in this job there’s no time for sleep.”

In only one month on the sidelines at Colorado, Sanders has not only served as de facto CEO of a nearly $51 million corporation (that was prior to his arrival, the 2023 numbers will be much larger than that) he has become the front porch salesman of a $21 billion university, been involved in one very public spat with a rival coach (and nearly pushed into another), spurred an almost 900 percent increase in Buffaloes merchandise sales and generated the highest college football TV ratings for ABC in six years.

Call him Prime Time. Call him Neon Deion. Call him Coach Prime. No matter what nickname you prefer, monikers and catch phrases on t-shirts (Sanders applied for five trademarks just this week) have all become little more than garnish for this latest iteration of the man who electrified Florida State as a three-sport athlete in the 1980’s and put the same charge into the NFL and MLB in the ’90s. Now, nearly two decades after hanging up his cleats for good, he is the face of college football in 2023. The man who could have cashed in on NIL like perhaps no other before or since. The man who could have teleported onto any roster of his choosing via the transfer portal. Now, he is the man who is helping today’s kids navigate it all. Prime Time at exactly the right time.

Oh, by the way, his team is also 3-1. Even with a completely overhauled roster, that is a miraculous about-face for a program that won only one game and was ESPN’s runaway Bottom 10 champion one year ago. However, after a stunning 3-0 start, that “1” was dropped like an anvil on Wile E. Coyote’s head last weekend. A 42-6 loss at Oregon immediately herded the Buffs out of the Top 25 and brought in those who have been barking at Sanders since the days of big hair and Zubaz.

“When I came out the womb I was booed,” Sanders said Tuesday when asked how he deals with haters. “I don’t have a message for detractors. I don’t take my time to respond and to defend myself. Why would I do that? I’m giving you a microphone if I’m doing that. I’m giving you solace that you’re in my life. I don’t care. I really don’t. It’s been that way all my life, so you would think that I’m used to it. I’m not new to this, I’m true to this. And I’m going to keep going. So, I’m good with that, man. I’m good with that. This is a comfortable place for me.”

Now, for you youngsters out there, it feels like you’re owed an explanation. You have likely spent the last month, at the very least that last quote, wondering, “Why are my parents and grandparents so worked up — good and bad — about this dude coaching at Colorado?”

The answer can be found a few paragraphs ago. Sanders as a Seminole was the guy who stood face mask to face mask with Jimmy Johnson’s Miami Hurricanes and didn’t blink. He once dug in his heels at the base of Clemson’s Hill like Captain America facing the entire Thanos army, slapping his chest pad and taunting the Tigers as they touched Howard’s Rock and ran toward him…then broke off a 77-yard punt return for a TD in torrential rain. He won conference championships in baseball and track on the same day.

He played in the Super Bowl and the World Series, the only man to do so. He collected two Super Bowl rings, eight Pro Bowl invites and an NFL Defensive Player of the Year award. He did indeed record an album with MC Hammer (download “Must Be The Money,” trust me) and made cameos on everything from Moesha to Walker, Texas Ranger. He was the voice of Sega Genesis football. And everyone’s Sunday evening on the couch was spent watching a show that shared his name, NFL Prime Time, on ESPN when Chris Berman and Tom Jackson would narrate the video of every Sanders interception, pick-six, kick return and TD catch (yes, he played both ways from time to time) with a chant of “Prime Time…Prime Time…PRIME TIME!”

So, yeah, Gen Z, what your elders are trying to tell you, whether they are high stepping through the living room or pointing a middle finger at College GameDay in Boulder, is that Deion Sanders somehow went viral before the internet was a thing, when that term still only applied to diseases.

But now, Sanders finds himself battling his own medical conditions. His toes were already mangled from all those years running up and down sidelines and baselines. In September 2021, after a routine procedure to fix those old injuries, a much worse condition was discovered, circulation problems that led to the amputation of two toes and the removal of some leg muscle tissue to limit the circulation damage. He had just started his second season as head coach at Jackson State, an HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi, and was forced to miss three games. When TV cameras aired the images of a suddenly old-looking Neon Deion, stuck in a hospital bed with a full gray beard, it was downright shocking to those who had witnessed him at the height of his athletic superpowers.

For Sanders, it was also revelatory.

“When your body breaks down, it is a reality check like no other,” he recalled in December 2022, days after accepting the Colorado job. “For anyone, it is a reality check. But for me, who as a younger man made my whole world from what this body could do, that was more than a reality check. That was a vulnerability check. As you get older, you know you have to rely more on the muscle of the mind, but when your other muscles don’t work for you anymore, the need to work that mind muscle, you realize you need to get on with that. Start impacting lives with that.”

That he had taken the job at Jackson State was already a step no one saw coming, explained by Sanders only as “a collect call from God of which I had no choice but to accept the charges.” His first Tigers team went 3-2 in the pandemic-shortened spring schedule of 2021. The next two years it went 23-3 with a pair of Celebration Bowl appearances.

“What I will always remember about Deion at Jackson State is him out there cutting the grass on his own lawn mower that he brought from home,” recalls Emmitt Smith, who played against Sanders in college as a Florida Gator and with him as a Dallas Cowboys teammate. “That’s him, man. I think it is easy to focus on Prime Time and the show and the soundbites, but you don’t get to where he has been without working so hard. I know what people saw him do at an HBCU made people think, should I have gone there? I know I did. And I know Deion did. Now new kids will.”

Smith, and nearly every other former teammate of No. 21, love to talk about the Deion Sanders evolution. See: The infamous story about Sanders when he arrived in Dallas in 1995, as described by Jeff Pearlman in his 2008 book “Boys Will Be Boys.” Sanders frustrated defensive coordinator Dave Campo their very first time together in a position meeting room by pointing to the video screen and saying, “Hey, Coach, I got that dude right there. Wherever he goes, I go. All that Cover 2 stuff you’re talking about, y’all work that out.”

That guy who was once allergic to film study, now keeps real-time spreadsheets on how much time his players spend watching film. He explained that on Tuesday, within the context of a question about freshman corner Cormani McClain’s lack of playing time, despite being Colorado’s most-ballyhooed offseason signee, a five-star prospect who flipped from Miami.

“Study and prepare. Be on time for meetings, show up to the dern meetings,” Sanders said. ‘Understand the scheme. Understand what we are doing as a scheme, want to play this game, desire to play this game, desire to be the best in this game, at practice, in the film room and on your own time. You do know I check film time from each player so I can see who’s preparing? That’s not just about Cormani. If I don’t see that, you would be a fool to put somebody out there who’s not prepared. Can’t do it, won’t do it.”

Again, it’s Sanders, so social media and local sports talk radio immediately became a tug of war between those ripping the coach for calling a kid out publicly (and not for the first time) and those who applauded Sanders for calling out a five-star and doing so without fear of alienating potential future signees.

The reality is McClain might have to play against No. 8 USC on Saturday because Colorado’s secondary is banged up. The latest to suffer is also a Sanders. The middle of Deion’s five children, safety Shilo Sanders had to be hospitalized due to urinating blood upon the team’s return home from Oregon. Younger brother Shedeur is the team’s quarterback, little sister Shelomi is on the Colorado women’s basketball team, and they are all documented by big brother Deion Jr., the man behind the camera of all those viral Colorado athletic department social media posts this season.

“Even though we got the ‘L’ (against Oregon) I don’t consider it a loss when I get to watch my sons not only play on the field, I get to watch my son film everything and edit it and put it out and make people insecure around the country about their staffs, and then I get to see my daughter come in my office and take a nap on the couch,” Sanders said Tuesday. “I’m living a wonderful double life here as a father and coach. I’m loving every minute of it.”

So, what does a 56-year-old lifelong lightning rod teach to a house and locker room full of Gen Z’ers who are new to all the noise that continuously rolls over Colorado football like, well, a boulder? It’s the luxury tax one must pay when they become the new Georgetown Hoyas, Fab Five or — sorry FSU fans — The U.

“It’s not about them, it’s about us, everywhere we go,” he explained Tuesday. “Even in your families you’re going to have detractors, naysayers, you have doubters even in your dern family. You guys are all shaking your heads, like, ‘Yeah, my aunt, she ain’t no good,’ and, ‘Yeah, my sister, she’s ignorant.’ You know I’m telling the truth. Because it’s going to be like that. God would always allow somebody to be in your path that has a disdain or dislike for you. It’s up to you to keep going.”

And there it is. Our answer. Because, no, Deion Sanders does not need to coach football. Honestly, Prime Time wouldn’t have wanted to. He wasn’t patient enough. We learned that during some of his pre-coaching educational and business failings.

But this is Coach Prime. The one with the grey hairs, the bad feet, the constant cautionary tales and all those catch phrases. Neon Deion made mistakes. Coach Prime wants to make sure these kids, especially his own, don’t do the same. You can love Deion Sanders. You can hate Deion Sanders. Plenty do, always have and always will. But his efforts are inarguably admirable, his words are always honest and the college football world is a hell of a lot more interesting with him in it. He knows that. That’s why he can’t walk away.

Also, winning football games is still fun.

“I don’t stop. I keep going. I don’t have stop in me. Not whatsoever, man.”

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Buffs coach: Stars ‘should be going 1-2’ in draft

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Buffs coach: Stars 'should be going 1-2' in draft

BOULDER, Colo. — For the horde of NFL talent evaluators and some bleachers full of fans, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Friday that they all got to see the top two players available in this year’s NFL draft.

Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter were among the 16 Colorado players who took part in the school’s showcase event for scouts, coaches and personnel executives from every NFL team. And Deion Sanders said the two marquee players confirmed what he has known for a long time.

“It’s tremendous,” Sanders said. “… They should be going 1-2 [in the draft], that’s the way I feel about it. They are the two best players in this draft. … The surest bets in this draft are those two young men, and I didn’t stutter or stammer when I said that.”

Neither Shedeur Sanders nor Hunter took part in most of the position drills or physical testing, but Sanders had a throwing session for just under an hour and Hunter was one of the wide receivers who participated. Neither player worked out at the scouting combine earlier this year, so it was the first time Sanders had thrown in such a setting since the end of the season. He showed some full seven-step drops and play-action from the shotgun and under center.

“I think I did pretty good, to my expectations,” said Sanders, who set the career FBS accuracy mark in his two years at Colorado (71.8%) to go with his 4,134 passing yards and 37 touchdowns last season. “I know I did the best in college football right now, for sure.”

Asked after the throwing session whether he believed he was the best quarterback in the draft, Sanders said: “I feel like I’m the No. 1 quarterback, and that’s what I know. But at the end of the day, I’m not stuck on that because it’s about the situation, so whatever situation, whatever franchise believes in me, I’m excited to go. … I’m comfortable in any situation.”

Players Hunter, who did not speak to the media after the workout, and Sanders met with the Cleveland Browns contingent, including team co-owner Jimmy Haslam, on Thursday night in Boulder.

“They got me really full,” Sanders said. “I definitely needed to go to the sauna after that. … It was a good vibe.”

Said Deion Sanders said: “[I] spoke to the owner, truly delightful. He was engaging. … I think one of those guys is going to be there [at No. 2].”

Hunter, the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, did not do any defensive drills Friday, but he ran a full assortment of routes.

Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, Shedeur’s brother, offered plenty of encouragement, shouting commentary and clapping after each throw, including “not a lot of quarterbacks can make that throw” after one deep completion.

The highly attended event — by NFL representatives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” complete with a large lighted “The Showcase” sign next to the drills.

Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Fred Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he will primarily be a wide receiver or a cornerback in the NFL depends “on the team that picks me.”

On Friday, Deion Sanders said “ain’t nobody like Travis.”

Hunter had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and 4 interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.

He played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.

Shilo Sanders, who hoped to show teams more speed than expected, ran a 4.52 40-yard dash after he measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds. He did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.

With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Shedeur Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard. Sheppard, who measured 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 broad jump.

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O’s Henderson off IL; will make ’25 debut vs. KC

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O's Henderson off IL; will make '25 debut vs. KC

Baltimore Orioles All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson was activated from the 10-day injured list and will make his season debut Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.

The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.

Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.

Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.

“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”

Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.

Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.

“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.

Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.

But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?

“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”

For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.

“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”

Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.

There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.

“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”

For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.

That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.

This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.

“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”

Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.

The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.

In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.

“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”

Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.

“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”

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