"I Was Trying to Falsify How I Was Feeling": Deion Sanders Opens Up About Painful Colorado Struggles During Cancer Battle

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As Colorado prepares itself to return to winning ways next season, Deion Sanders has been very reminiscent of his position around this time last year. In 2025, he had a life-threatening diagnosis that he could not even tell his mother about. Apparently, there were more people he was hiding the severity of the sickness from, as he has now confessed to how much he kept the full extent of the pain to himself.

“I’ve always been around; let”s get this straight,” Deion Sanders said while addressing local press at the Big 12 media day on July 8. “But I wasn’t around last year. This time last year, I came here; I forgot the color of the suit I had on, shorts up under it, and a hoodie up under it. It’s because I have lost a large amount of weight, and I didn’t want a lot of people to know. Smiling, styling, profiling, trying to do the best I could to falsify how I was really feeling.

“I’m back, I’m healthy, I got my thought process, my me back. I sat there with a couple of staffers, and we watched every single guy that’s in that locker room on film, and made the decision on every single guy, every single recruit. Everything is just going up. And you can see by the recruiting, you can see by the team that we’ve assembled, the coaching staff. I keep saying this is the best staff I’ve ever had.”

The Sanders family is one of the most publicized families in American sports. However, when he had his deadly battle with bladder cancer, he kept the details away from public knowledge. Behind the scenes, his girlfriend, Karrueche Tran, and his immediate family members were there to support Coach Prime.

Deion Sanders had the surgery to remove the tumor in the spring of 2025. When he attended the Big 12 media day exactly a year ago, no one knew what the Colorado head coach was going through. He answered questions about transitioning from Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, and he got the fans geared up for another season.

Three weeks after his media appearance, on July 28 last year, Coach Prime announced his medical diagnosis in a press conference. While he was officially cancer-free, the healing from the surgery was still going on. As Sanders was going through it, the Buffaloes struggled on the field. During the season, rumors circulated that the Buffs’ head coach might step down due to his medical issues. But he held on despite his struggles.

Coach Prime told Good Morning America last month that he “got his swagger back.” The Colorado head coach is now fully focused on improving Colorado’s fortunes. The program made moves in the January portal to resolve issues on both sides of the ball. The Buffs have a new offensive coordinator in Brennan Marion, who is looking to evolve the offense led by Julian Lewis.

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