Based on your emails, especially the ones we can’t print in a family newspaper, y’all feel the Grading The Week staff can be a tad harsh on Deion Sanders.
There are reasons for it coming across that way, one of which we’ll get into shortly. But let’s say this, too: To be fair to the GTW peanut gallery, not a single soul on our crack team said Coach Prime couldn’t recruit. Or that he couldn’t sell, as confirmed by the commitment of mega high school tackle Jordan Seaton, the latest feather in the man’s talent-building cap, earlier this week.
But GTW’s overall stance hasn’t changed. Yes, 4-8 is a heck of a lot better than 1-11. Yes, Boulder is back on the national college football map. But as to other parts of The Great Deion Sanders Experiment? Jury’s still out.
Coach Prime wants … “privacy?” — F
And Prime hasn’t exactly engendered our sympathies when he stiff-arms local media outlets in favor of video operations run by family members and friends — or in favor of paid business partners.
His program. His media team. His rules. His message. Sanders has had multiple camera crews following him around darn near everywhere for the 12 months in which he’s been employed by CU, and fair enough. But you can’t have it both ways. Because Sanders also had the gall, during a series of interviews with national outlets earlier this week, to tell People magazine this:
“You always wish that you had a little more privacy. But the same thing that makes you shine will show your blemishes. So, you’ve got to take the good with the bad. You can’t just want everyone there when the hype machine is rolling, you have to understand there’s another side to this.”
There is. And good on a man who brought his own Amazon Prime crew and at least two YouTube channels north with him to acknowledge that, at least. Still: A reality show and reality itself, even on Planet Prime, aren’t always the same thing.
You signed up for this, Coach. Both sides. All sides.
More Denver college hoops cred — A-.
Our little “football” state keeps building up steam as a college hoops one, doesn’t it? CU features a future NBA lottery pick (Cody Williams) and has the seeds of a potential NCAA tourney resume already planted. CSU, king of the locals, heads into a big Moby Arena tussle with Saint Mary’s on Saturday sitting at 13th in the AP Poll, unbeaten (9-0) and a sexy pick to win the Mountain West.
Don’t tell anybody, but an early strain of March Madness seems to be catching on at other men’s hoops outposts across the Centennial State, too. Air Force sports a 7-2 record with three “true” road wins, already tying a single-season record for away victories before the middle of December. DU — hockey school, not a football one — sports the nation’s points leader, and No. 2 points-per-game scorer as of Friday, in guard Tommy Bruner. Yeah, he’s a volume shooter (Bruner leads the country in shots, with 180, going into Saturday). But when you’re connecting on your treys — Bruner was good on 4 of 9 attempts from distance in a loss at CSU this past Wednesday — at a 46.3% clip, dude, fire away.
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