Deion Sanders’ attention-commanding debut season with the University of Colorado Buffaloes football program added another milestone on Nov. 5: Coach Prime is now a Guinness World
Record-holder.
In conjunction with the university and UCHealth, Sanders hosted a football-skills clinic for children ages 7-10 at the CU football practice facility in Boulder.
COACH PRIME, CHIEF MOTIVATION OFFICER
The Guinness World Record-setting event was part of UCHealth’s “Ready. Set. CO challenge,” an effort to encourage healthy lifestyles throughout the state “after Colorado slipped in various health metrics over the last several,” per its website.
UCHealth introduced Coach Prime as the organization’s “Chief Motivation Officer” in August. In a UCHealth statement announcing the collaboration, Sanders said, “You’ve got to be disciplined to accomplish anything in life, and then have a good character. If you say you’re going to do something, do it.”
GENERATIONS OF COLORADO COME TOGETHER
The next generation of football-playing youth in Colorado received instruction from Coach Prime and others during drills at the UCHealth event.
Other instructors included former Buffaloes Lance Carl, a wide receiver at CU in the 1980s, and Darian Hagan, quarterback of the co-national championship-winning Buffs team in 1990. Both are members of Sanders’ 2023 Colorado football coaching staff, with Hagan as executive director of community engagement and outreach; and Carl the director of player development.
COACH PRIME ENGAGING WITH THE COLORADO COMMUNITY
Beyond setting the Guinness World Record, the UCHealth clinic offered local kids the opportunity to get face-time with one of the most decorated football players of all-time, and the most talked-about coach in the sport in Sanders.
Likewise, Sanders welcomed the chance to engage with the community, holding a Q&A with children and their parents. “Just to see the excitement and the happiness and the pure joy in the faces of the kids was just unbelievable,” he said in a press conference.
COLORADO’S FAMILY AFFAIR WITH DEION SANDERS
Joining families on the football field, as Sanders did during the UCHealth clinic, has been the theme of his college-coaching tenure at both Colorado and Jackson State.
The Buffs roster includes Coach Prime’s sons — quarterback Shedeur Sanders and safety Shilo Sanders — and Deion Sanders Jr. has earned praise for his activity chronicling the family’s journey on social media.
GUINNESS WORLD RECORD ADDS TO DEION SANDERS’ IMPRESSIVE TROPHY CASE
“First of all, the Guinness Book of World Records has been around for I-don’t-know-how-long,”
Sanders said. “So to be part of that historic…name, Guinness, that’s major.”
Chalk it up to the many major honors on Coach Prime’s resume. He is a two-time Super Bowl champion, the 1994 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and an inductee into both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
AMERICAN FOOTBALL IN THE GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS
Deion Sanders is not the first American football product to earn distinction from the Guinness World Records since its inception in 1955.
Among the records tied to the game of American football is one set in Australia — and with loose ties to the Colorado Buffaloes. In September 2022, Brendan Fevola set a record for highest altitude catch of a football at 727.98 feet. Fevola trained at ProKick Australia, the same American football school that produced Buffs kicker Mark Vassett.
COLORADO’S SEASON IN THE SPOTLIGHT UNDER DEION SANDERS
Representatives from the Guinness World Records are hardly alone in their interest in Colorado football with Coach Prime at the helm. Since Sanders’ hire in December 2022, the Buffaloes have been prominent on the national stage; as Vassett described it, “Every time you look at your phone, it’s about Colorado.”
Fox Big Noon Kickoff aired from the site of four of CU’s first five games in 2023, and ESPN College Gameday visited Boulder for the first time in 27 years.
STARS OUT IN BOULDER
Sanders’ prominence since the late 1980s, when he was an All-American defensive back at Florida State, coupled with his charismatic and flashy demeanor earned him a loyal fan base that includes plenty of celebrities.
Case in point: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who played college football at Florida State’s arch-rival Miami shortly after Sanders’ time as a Seminole, rocked Colorado black-and-gold and spoke to the Buffs this season.
COACH PRIME SEEKING ANOTHER MILESTONE: A BOWL GAME
Sanders’ Guinness World Record was a win for CU football amid a trying stretch of defeats. The UCHealth clinic ensued less than 24 hours after a 26-19 loss Nov. 4 to Oregon State, dropping the Buffs to 4-5 on the season and 1-5 in Pac-12 Conference play.
Colorado must go 2-1 over its final three games to reach the program’s first bowl game since the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, and its first postseason trip in a full campaign since 2016.
TRYING TO BOUNCE BACK IN BOULDER
Colorado’s loss to Oregon State marked the Buffs’ third consecutive defeat and fifth in their last six games. CU plays at home in Boulder just once more in the 2023 season, hosting No. 23-ranked Arizona on Nov. 11.
Sanders said of moving on from the losses during his weekly media conference: “Losses are hard to flush tremendously for me, though, because I’m a bona fide winner. I’m a positive person throughout anything, so I don’t really dwell on it. I’m a natural fixer.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR COACH PRIME AT COLORADO?
A season that began with the college football world buzzing about the Buffs hasn’t been without its ups and downs. Throughout the process, Colorado and Coach Prime have remained firmly in the spotlight.
At 280 participants, Guinness World Record-setting event Deion Sanders helped oversee surpassed the previous record for an American football lesson. The old mark stood at 250. That raising of the bar is the standard Coach Prime has said he expects of his CU program, which will make a quick transition looking ahead to the 2024 season as soon as the Buffs’ 2023 concludes.
