Throughout March, the University of Colorado celebrated Women’s History Month with a lengthy list of clinics and events curated to honor the contributions of women on campus and beyond.
Just before the calendar turned to April, Colorado welcomed Warren Sapp to Buff Nation.
The “NFL-izing” of the CU football program under head coach Deion Sanders continued with the addition of Sapp, likely the most famous graduate assistant to ever grace the sideline of a major college football program. He arrives with a gold jacket as a Pro Football Hall of Famer, along with a list of relatively recent legal transgressions dominated by assaults against women.
This was no April Fool’s joke. And it wouldn’t have been funny if it had been.
It has been a remarkable turnaround in Boulder in the 16 months since Sanders was hired, as even with just four wins the Buffaloes became one of the most-viewed, most talked about programs in the country. Yet allowing Sapp to begin his redemption tour at CU is a blemish on the Buffs’ road back to national relevancy.
Sapp’s off-the-field troubles have been well-documented. Following the Super Bowl in Arizona in 2015, Sapp was arrested for assault and solicitation of a prostitute that cost him his job at the NFL Network. Hardly chastened, months later Sapp was arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend in an altercation that began at a Las Vegas resort and continued at her nearby home. Sapp took plea deals in both cases, avoiding jail time.
That’s not all.
There was a domestic assault arrest in 2010 in which the charges ultimately were dropped. More damningly, Sapp was one of several former NFL players named in a late 2017 lawsuit leveled by a former wardrobe stylist at the NFL Network detailing a number of ugly harassment claims against Sapp and other former players employed (or, in Sapp’s case, formerly employed) by the network. He also filed for bankruptcy in 2012 due in large part to unpaid taxes and child support/alimony payments.
These points do not make up the background of someone who has made a regrettable, one-time, youthful mistake. These are habitual actions from a retired player who should’ve known better. And now he’s part of Buff Nation. Be proud.
It’s easy to question Sapp’s motives in taking such a low-level position, even if his annual salary of $150,000 is well above the curve of the typical graduate assistant. It was only six years ago, in a well-detailed Sports Illustrated feature after Sapp emerged from his legal issues, in which Sapp proclaimed, “I’ve always said I want to leave the league in better shape than when I started, and I am NOT coaching. I’m not (expletive) coaching.”
And yet here he is, coaching and mentoring the young men of your Colorado Buffaloes.
Certainly it’s not as if Sapp can’t be a positive influence. Obviously he has Hall of Fame credentials on the field. Sapp’s name has the potential to draw recruits, yet given he has zero coaching history, combined with the fact that graduate assistants can’t recruit off-campus, it’s questionable just how impactful Sapp will be in that regard. One of his recent passions has been to lend his voice to the cause of CTE and head injuries in youth football players. Anyone who has followed my work at BuffZone knows this is a deep and personal issue for me, and for those efforts I applaud Sapp.
Yet make no mistake, this is Sanders bringing his buddy into the fold, his legal troubles be damned. Don’t overlook this takes away an opportunity from an up-and-coming coach prospect looking for their first big break, who would likely be hungrier and certainly would be cheaper. No other coach in the CU athletic department would get the green light for a similar hire, and other football assistant coach candidates with legitimate coaching credentials have been dismissed from the applicant pool due to far fewer blemishes on their background checks.
BuffZone reached out to athletic director Rick George this week seeking further clarification and comment on the vetting process for Sapp, but was told through a university spokesperson CU would stick with its vanilla statement released this week:
“Warren Sapp successfully completed all of the necessary steps required of anyone who is employed at CU Boulder, including a background check. Furthermore, Athletic Director Rick George personally met with Warren to clearly articulate the department’s standards and expectations, to which he acknowledged and agreed.”
I heard from a relatively minor portion of Buff Nation last year wondering if CU was selling its soul for football glory with the hiring of the flamboyant and outspoken Sanders. I never bought into that. If anything, CU and George finally embraced true change for a long-moribund program, and the results have been outstanding in terms of exposure and ticket and merchandise sales. It was a home run hire.
On the other hand, CU won four games last year. At this point I believe they’ll probably be a little better this fall, but Sanders’ bravado exclaiming the Buffs will compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff is either a simple ploy to continue stoking excitement or downright delusional. Adding Sapp risks the reputation of an entire institution for the pursuit of the relatively low bar of bowl eligibility.
Maybe I was wrong and that soul-selling has already begun.
