CU never confirmed Coach Prime's big-name Colorado football hiring and may veto
CU leadership contradicted Coach Prime about the hiring, or rather, lack thereof, of Warren Sapp for a role with the Colorado football program. According to University of Colorado officials, Sapp was never discussed for a job.
"There have been no conversations about hiring Warren Sapp for an assistant coach position at the University of Colorado," said Steve Hurlbert, spokesman for CU Boulder (h/t USA Today).
USA Today's Brent Schrotenboer explained why Colorado may never confirm Sapp's hiring for Coach Prime's Buffs staff.
"Sapp also has another history, involving violence against women, that has raised concerns in Colorado at the same time, leading to questions about his hiring there and how the university would address it after a previous scandal there led to pledges of no tolerance for domestic violence," Schrotenboer wrote. "In 2017, Colorado’s then-head coach, athletic director and chancellor were punished after an investigation found they mishandled domestic violence allegations involving a previous assistant football coach."
Sapp's hiring is likely dead on arrival -- and again, it doesn't sound as though it ever even arrived and that Coach Prime was trying to will it into existence by constantly affirming it and putting it out into the universe -- with Violence Free Colorado, the federally recognized, anti-domestic violence coalition for the state of Colorado, speaking out against it and adding to its opposition.
“By recruiting someone with a history of public allegations of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, they risk promoting violence rather than speaking out against it,” said the org's statement. “They risk saying that violence is excusable if the player or coach is successful. They risk undermining the public work CU has done to speak out against domestic violence. As advocates, we know the answer is not to ignore the allegations against Mr. Sapp, but to address them head on.”
Warren Sapp non-hiring could be first major disagreement between Colorado football brain trust and Coach Prime
Coach Prime's friend won't be coming to Boulder despite strong campaigning from the Buffs head coach to get him to, and with that, we may have the first disagreement between the University of Colorado and Deion Sanders.
It's an understandable one from the school, and hopefully one Sanders understands himself. It's alarming the school's edict was never communicated to Coach Prime, but as long as the issue is squashed, I suppose...
Of course, if it's not, and the issues between Sanders and CU persist, Colorado football could be on its way to another down period.