Deion Sanders: The 2023 60 Minutes Interview Transcript

Conventionally, 60 Minutes doesn’t profile the same subject twice in two seasons but convention doesn’t intersect with pro football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders. Last Fall, we met Sanders in Mississippi, where he was coaching Jackson State to prominence in a conference of historically black colleges and universities. Then, the man who calls himself Coach Prime high stepped it to Boulder, to the University of Colorado, taking his blazingly singular style with him.

(00:34)
There, he hasn’t just awoken a dormant program, but has transformed it into the talk of college football, if not American sports. Sanders is revered, he is reviled, but his sudden impact is indisputable. For the second time, in two radically different environments, unapologetic as ever, he’s shaken the sport like a snow globe.

The story will continue in a moment.

Are you the change agent? Are you the ultimate change agent?

I make a difference. I truly make a difference. I make folks nervous, man. I get folks moving in their seat. I get folks twirling their thumbs. I get them thinking and second guessing they self. Have you ever been so clean that you walked in and somebody looked down at you, then they looked at themselves, they had to check themselves because you were so clean? I have that effect.

That’s the vibe you’re getting?

No, I have that effect. That was some good game right there. God, that was good.

(01:34)
We ain’t got next. We got now. We ain’t coming no more.

We here.

This was the scene in the locker room two weekends ago.

Give me my theme music.

Before the Colorado Buffaloes and their new coach, Dion Sanders opened the season a 21 point underdog at TCU.

Do your job. Everybody do your job.

Colorado was fresh off a one in 11 season. TCU was fresh from playing in last season’s national championship game. With skill and will, the Buffaloes won 45-42 behind their star quarterback, Shedeur Sanders. But the real focus, as ever, was on Shedeur’s 56-year-old father. It was his first win as coach of a Power Five school. The highest level of college football.

(02:32)
Do you feel like you were underestimated? You come here and it’s “I don’t know if Coach Prime can win.” You must’ve heard what some of these other coaches were saying, both secretly and out loud.

That’s fear.

Fear.

Yeah, that’s fear. That’s like, “hey, man, shoot, we don’t want to let that Engine That Could get going because if that Engine That Could get going, he going to start saying, “I think I can. I think I can.” And sooner or later he going to start saying, “I know I can. I know I can.” Then, sooner or later, he going to start saying, “I did that.”

His Colorado debut drew national attention and monster TV ratings. Interest compounded last weekend, when the Buffaloes played before the biggest home crowd in 15 years and beat rival Nebraska.

(03:14)
This weekend, both FOX and ESPN dispatched their pregame shows, The Rock included, to Boulder. Then, the Buffaloes rallied late to beat Colorado State in a double overtime thriller. Three games into the season, the foothills of the Rockies marked the unlikely epicenter of an entire sport.

(03:33)
What’s this been like for you?

It’s been a lot of fun.

Rick George, who hired Coach Prime, has been Colorado’s athletic director for a decade.

It’s great for us to be able to bring this program back to relevancy and we had failed in my previous nine years, 10 years.

Fair to call this bit of a Hail Mary?

It wasn’t a Hail Mary, but it was a moment in time for our university and our athletic department that we were either going to be relevant or we were going to be irrelevant.

It’s too early to quantify the full prime effect, but merchandise sales, up 819% from last season, Instagram followers up more than tenfold, season tickets sold out. Sanders might be the ideal coach for these shifting times in college football.

(04:25)
Another son, Dion, Jr. is part of the army of videographers filming the team nonstop for YouTube and an upcoming docu-series.

(04:34)
This team won one game last season. Is that, in a way, a point of appeal?

God wouldn’t relocate me to something that was successful. That don’t make sense to do it. He had to find the most disappointing and the most difficult task, and this is what it was and this is what it is, and I love that.

This wasn’t dissimilar to what he told us last year, that God had called him collect to come to Jackson State University and elevate, yes, the football program, but also all HBCUs.

(05:11)
He stayed three seasons, but the same night last December that JSU won the conference championship, Sanders announced he was off to Colorado to climb another mountain.

(05:22)
You left Jackson State and you left quick. What did you tell those kids? What did you tell those-

I didn’t leave quick. Let’s slow down. I didn’t leave quick. I left when I was supposed to leave. We finished. Most coaches get a new job and they leave expeditiously. I finished the task.

You say finished the task. Was there more work you could have done in Jackson?

I think we did a tremendous job in Jackson. I think we laid down a tremendous blueprint.

We tried to press Sanders on the circumstances surrounding his abandoning the mission at Jackson State. He’s hinted the school’s lack of forward-thinking may have factored in his decision but, on this topic, he was about as elusive as he was returning punt for touchdowns in the NFL.

(06:02)
What’d you tell his kids when you left?

Opportunity called. Sooner or later in life, there will be opportunity that knocks at your door and, at this juncture in my life, I felt like the opportunity, for not only me but for my kids as well, was tremendous. Not only did we take several kids from that team, three trainers, maybe 12 to 14 staffers. We afforded to give people a tremendous opportunity here.

The distance between Jackson and Boulder is a thousand miles and immeasurably further culturally. Sanders went from a city that is 83% black to one that is 1% black, from a place with a water crisis to the kind of hipster college town where there’s a shop devoted to kites.

(06:53)
What are your first impressions?

Beautiful. Unbelievable. Just the whole peace and serenity of it all. I never fathomed coming here. I ain’t never even vacationed here, man. I ain’t never been skiing or whatever you call it, snowboarding or whatever, all the stuff. I ain’t never done none of that.

You don’t even fly fish.

No, I don’t. I fish. I fly why I fish but I don’t fly fish.

Still. He wasted no time ingratiating himself in the community, including a visit to Peggy Coppom, a 98-year-old Buffalo super fan.

Are you Prime?

That’s what they call me.

Do I call you that?

No, no. You call me anything you want. We good.

How about good-looking?

There you go.

That’ll do?

Okay. I like that.

He was less embracing of the incumbent Colorado players. At the first team meeting in December, Sanders encouraged players to enter the transfer portal, an open market for athletes to find new schools.

I promise you it’s my job to get rid of you.

And make room for superior talent he planned to bring in. More than 50 players eventually transferred out.

(07:58)
You got here and you didn’t pull punches. You told some of these guys-

Have I ever? You take a team that’s won one game and you fired a whole coaching staff. Who did the coaching staff recruit? The kids. The kids are just as much to blame as the coaching staff and I came to the conclusion that a multitude of them couldn’t help us get to where we wanted to go.

You told most of these guys, the more you jump in, the more room you’re going to make. Those of you we don’t run off, we’re going to try to make you quit. You made it very clear.

Yeah. Now, if you went for that, if you were able to let words run you off, you ain’t for us, because we’re an old school staff. We coach hard. We coach tough. We’re disciplinarians. If you’re allowing verbage to run you off because you don’t feel secure with your ability, you ain’t for us.

If some kid said, you know what? No, I’m staying. You’re not going to run me off with your words.

Right. Stay. Prove it.

I’m sure that your straight talk was appreciated by some, but is this scorched earth policy good for college football or for the kids?

I think truth is good for kids. We’re so busy lying, we don’t even recognize the truth no more in society. We want everybody to feel good. That’s not the way life is. Now, it is my job to make sure I have what we need to win. That makes a lot of people feel good. Winning does.

I got to push back on this. You’re a father of college athletes.

Five. Yes.

If they called you and say, hey, we got a new coach and they’re telling me to get in the transfer portal.

I’d say, son, you must not be doing well.

That’s what you’d say.

You must not be doing well because you should be a asset and not a liability. I’m honest with my kids.

His kids include Shedeur, the star quarterback, and Shiloh, a starting safety.

(09:48)
You guys have any idea that you were going to be this good and capture the country the way you have?

Yeah.

You did?

We both didn’t come here, have our dad coaching, just to lose.

A year ago to the day we watched Shedeur fling and zing touchdown passes at Jackson State. But there were questions about whether he could do the same against stiffer competition. In his first two games at Colorado, he threw for nearly 1000 yards without an interception.

(10:20)
You were putting up big numbers at Jackson State. You’re doing it here against teams and the Big 10, the Big 12. Must be gratifying.

Yeah. No, these two games was the most yards I passed for in my career. It’s just exciting knowing that it translating on a bigger stage. I just feel better.

He’s also, and again, welcome to today’s college sports, translated his success into riches, thanks to NIL: Name Image Likeness income. So much so he drives a $190,000 Mercedes Maybach and Shedeur might not even be the team’s best player. Travis Hunter also followed Coach Prime from Jackson to Colorado. His coach lets him play offense and defense, virtually unheard of in the modern college game.

(11:06)
You’ve got two really good Heisman quality players on this team.

Yes.

Your son and Travis Hunter.

Yes, sir.

First half of the first game of the season, you’re already publicly talking about Travis Hunter’s Heisman chances. Who does that?

A coach that loves his kids. The coach that understands that’s what those kids desire and I’m supposed to do that. That’s what we told them when they were coming and choosing to play for us. My kids, that play for me, they didn’t choose a university. They chose me. That’s the difference.

Coaches have chosen to join Sanders as well. The staff he overhauled and upgraded includes former head coaches and former coordinators from schools like Alabama.

(11:51)
Now that you’re a Power five guy, who’s the best coach in college football today?

Let me see a mirror, so I can look at it.

You feel that?

You think I’m going to sit up here and tell you somebody else? You think that’s the way I operate? That somebody else got that on me? But I tell you this: I love and I adore and I respect, and every time I do a commercial with Coach Saban, it’s a gift. Just sitting in his presence and hearing him and throwing something else out there so I could hear his viewpoint on it because he’s forgotten more things than I may ever accomplish. I am a student looking up to this wonderful teacher saying, “just throw me a crumb of what you know.”

For all the bling and bluster, there is some humility and the current mania may die down a bit as Colorado faces a welter of tougher opponents the rest of the season. But Deion Sanders has invigorated a campus, a program, an entire sport.

Game ball Peggy.

And damn if he hasn’t made it fun.

Give me my theme music.