Last year, Coach Prime was diagnosed with bladder cancer during a routine check for vascular disease. Not many knew about it until his surgery. Ahead of the 2025 season, the Buffs’ head coach candidly revealed the diagnosis in a press conference. Now, in a conversation on the August 1 episode of the Duke the Scoop podcast, Coach Prime talked about major details of his cancer journey.

“I got some wonderful doctors, man. Some wonderful people. And I’ve had maybe a couple of surgeries,” Deion Sanders detailed. “Nobody knows about that. But I’m straight. I’m like, ‘I’ve been back for a minute.’ And every last one of these guys on this roster on this board, that’s what I keep peeking at. I sat down and evaluated everybody that we’re recruiting. I sat down, evaluated them, and made sure my hand is on it. If I’m going to get the blame for it, my hand better be on it.”

At Colorado University’s Cancer Center, Dr. Janet Kukreja diagnosed Sanders with a high-grade and high-risk bladder cancer. At the time, it hadn’t penetrated the bladder wall muscles, but there was a very high chance of the tumor spreading. Because of that, Coach Prime went through a surgery that involved a full robot-assisted laparoscopic cystectomy. Thereafter, the doctors constructed a ‘neobladder’ using tissues from his intestines. But at the time, even players, coaches, and his family were unaware of these details.

“My sons, to this day, don’t know what transpired. I just told them it was something with my foot again,” Deion Sanders said on July 28 last year. Only Coach Prime’s athletic trainer, Lauren Askevold, and Deion Sanders Jr. knew about his diagnosis. That was probably why we saw only Bucky spending time with his father at his Deion Sanders’ Texas ranch during recovery. Coach Prime lost 25 lbs and had to relearn to walk and basic bodily functions.

Throughout 2025, Coach Prime was visibly struggling on the sidelines. In October, for instance, he was limping against TCU and even took off his left shoe because of throbbing pain. Two days later, he had to undergo vascular surgery for recurring blood clots, which was his sixth procedure since 2021.

The cancer battle wasn’t Coach Prime’s first health complication. Before it, he had faced a long history of vascular issues. Because of it, he got his two toes amputated in 2021 after a vein thrombosis diagnosis. Not just that, Coach Prime also had a 9-hour vascular procedure in 2023 due to a similar issue. Earlier this year, Sanders announced that he was “cancer-free.”

Because of Coach Prime’s long recovery journey and a lack of involvement within the program in the offseason, Colorado regressed to a 3-win season. This year, Deion Sanders is feeling completely healthy. Never mind that he has handpicked his roster, too.