Retired UC Chancellor Sends Farewell Message on Deion’s Colorado Football Hire

Soon-to-retire UC Chancellor Phil DiStefano put the hiring of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders entirely up to Rick George in one of his final statements representing the University from Colorado to Boulder.

In doing so, he praised George for being everything the school’s athletic department needed in his leadership.

“I give Rick all the credit for hiring Coach Prime,” DiStefano said (h/t Buff Zone). “I think it’s exactly what we needed for this university.” How things have changed in a very short period of time in a year, a year and a half…and the economic impact that has happened because of Coach Prime for the city and for the county, has been nothing short of incredible.

DiStefano did not indicate that Presence of Coach Prime in Boulder pushes him out. Instead, it seems he didn’t want to face a post-NIL world of collegiate athletics.

“Personally it worries me, and I think it worries a lot of people, that we won’t have intercollegiate athletics as we know it,” DiStefano said. “Unless Congress intervenes in some way, but I think the direction we take is going to change college athletics as we know it.”

DiStefano absolved or deprived himself of either the scrutiny or glory of what the “Prime Time” era ended up being in Boulder. So far, it’s been a box office success, but the on-field results are an improvement and, due to the timing of CU’s resurgence, mostly in September 2023, a disappointment.

George has the weight of either end result on his shoulders. Ultimately, though, George will be seen as a visionary who thinks outside the box to breathe life into a program that has become stale despite being capable of fielding the best team in the country.

Nothing has done more for the University of Colorado this century, regardless of sport, than the implementation of “Prime Time” in town.