Deion Sanders has been named Sports Illustrated’s 2023 Sportsperson of the Year. The man better known as Coach Prime sent a shot of adrenaline into Colorado’s college football scene by making the Buffaloes the talk of the University of Colorado and, by extension, the state itself.
Coach Prime led the Buffaloes on an unprecedented streak from the beginning of the year through September. For a time, the team was stealing national headlines from much more famous, and historically celebrated, NFL teams.
More than nine million viewers, an astonishing number, tuned in to watch the Buffaloes' September 16 victory against Colorado State, per Football Scoop. CU’s devastating loss against the Oregon Ducks the following week was the most-watched game of the college season.
SI displayed some inarguable figures to back up Coach Prime’s influence at CU. “September sales at the school’s online team store were up 2,544 percent over the same month in 2022,” the outlet reported. “Every home game in 50,183-seat Folsom Field was sold out for the first time in school history.”
Many residents were beginning to lose faith in the college town's football legacy, with some even questioning why the game was still being played to such diminishing returns. The season before Sanders inherited the Buffaloes, they won a single match out of 11. In less than a year, Sanders has practically reversed the curse. He stacked the team with two burgeoning stars: Travis Hunter, whom he plucked from Florida State; and his son, Shedeur Sanders, who’s already modeling his public image after his father.
“There is a hum in this town I haven’t seen in my 23 years here,” city council member Matt Benjamin told SI. Benjamin graduated from CU and to this day is a season-ticket holder for the school’s football matches. “It’s just infectious. People who know nothing about college football are talking about Coach Prime, talking about the CU Buffs. He’s bringing people in who were peripheral before.”
For Sanders, who recently pledged his allegiance to Colorado over the NFL, the victory has been glorious but hardly surprising. He’s been organizing teams since he was a young boy. As he moved into the NFL and then college coaching, he made a career out of bringing disparate factions together whilst playfully provoking his many dissenters, including Samuel L. Jackson.
“I didn’t have the ‘Prime’ nickname in youth leagues, but I’ve always been the guy who hit the home runs. I’ve always been the guy who scored the touchdowns,” Sanders told SI. “I’ve always been the guy who dunked and scored 30 points. I’ve always been the guy who brought people together, who broke up fights in high school. I’ve always been the guy that some people hated, some people ridiculed, some people doubted.”
With his success in Colorado, Sanders is showing everyone they had no reason to doubt him in the first place.
You can order your copy of Sports Illustrated's 2023 Sportsperson of the Year issue now.
