Although he kept much of his early health journey tightly under wraps, once he was cured, Deion Sanders made a deliberate choice to share his story publicly. He did so with the intention of spreading awareness and encouraging others, especially men, to take their health seriously. His only message to people is: “Get checked out.” That approach was carried into action recently, when the Colorado head coach partnered with UCHealth for an initiative focused on early detection.

Attendees walked away with free biometric screenings that could genuinely save lives. These screenings measure critical health markers like blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose levels, and body composition. It gave participants a real snapshot of where their health stands. 

Coach Prime addressed attendees from the stage, stressing that getting checked isn’t a sign of weakness. “You have to take care of the product. You’re the product,” Sanders told the crowd. “If you can’t take care of you, it ain’t gonna be no other thing. Every time you look in the mirror, say, ‘It’s my time. It’s my moment. Not to hide anymore, not to be afraid to talk about cancer, to talk about that fight.'”​ 

What Sanders keeps coming back to is how narrowly his own diagnosis was caught. His bladder cancer was discovered incidentally during a routine CT scan in spring 2025, to monitor lingering vascular issues tied to past blood clots. He wasn’t experiencing any symptoms. The scan wasn’t intended to look for cancer at all. But it still revealed a tumor before it had crossed into the muscle layer and fundamentally changed the outcome.

His surgeon, Dr. Janet Kukreja, told him there was a 50% chance it would return without aggressive treatment. But that early discovery left him with options and little time to hesitate.

Sanders chose bladder removal surgery, and by July 2025, doctors declared him cured. He shared the news publicly later that month during a press conference at Folsom Field, marking his return to Boulder and his first in-person appearance with the program since surgery. “I’m back, baby. I’m back,” Sanders said, even then crediting a routine scan, his faith, and his medical team for saving his life.

“I want everybody to understand you can make it, man,” Sanders said during a September 2025 appearance on Good Morning America. “We all got somethin’ we fightin’. Who out there right now ain’t fighting somethin’? It may not be cancer, but it’s somethin’. But you can overcome it. We can do this.”​

Sanders has been brutally honest about the lasting effects of his treatment, including incontinence issues that led to his partnership with Depends. “You know how many people’s going through this foolishness?” Sanders said during his cancer announcement. “But men never talk about stuff like this. We hide it because we want to be big, strong, and massive, and not vulnerable. No, man. This is real. This is what I’m dealing with. I ain’t waiting. I ain’t sitting back on the curb waiting to go slowly but surely do whatever’s gonna happen,” Sanders declared.

But, long before his own diagnosis, Sanders had already been visible in health-focused initiatives tied to Colorado and UCHealth. In 2023, he was named the “Chief Motivation Officer” for UCHealth’s statewide Ready. Set. CO campaign, a role that placed him at the center of a months-long push around physical activity, recovery, nutrition, and sleep. The campaign included in-person activations, digital outreach, and a large football clinic that drew families onto the field with an explicit focus on movement and preventive health.

That same hands-on approach carried into other engagements during his time in Boulder. Sanders accepted speaking roles at health-focused forums, including a keynote tied to sickle-cell research and advocacy, and worked alongside medical teams connected to Colorado and UCHealth on public-facing messaging around care, recovery, and screening. Even partnerships outside the hospital setting, from nutrition and recovery initiatives to charitable cancer-awareness campaigns linked to CU Athletics, consistently centered on translating medical guidance into something people could actually act on.

And now, Sanders’ determination to turn his pain into purpose is what’s turning Colorado’s men’s health campaign into a movement. Ensuring no stone is left unturned, Sanders is also getting brutally specific about what life actually looks like after bladder removal surgery.

Deion Sanders is taking the shame out of survival

Speaking on the Colorado Coaches Show in September 2025, he laid it all out there: “I got to make sure I pee before I go [coach]…sometimes before the game I use a catheter so I could make sure my bladder is empty so I don’t have to [go]. Because when you feel it, you got to use the bathroom. You start leaking…I’m sorry, but I’m getting explicit, but you start leaking and you got to take care of it.”

There’s a Depend-sponsored port-a-potty sitting right on Colorado’s sideline at Folsom Field. And it sparked one of the season’s best moments when former wide receiver Jimmy Horn Jr. asked to use it during the Georgia Tech game. “I say no deuces. You can use it. And I say, Jimmy, do not go in there and sit down and then the thing [gets] a gust of wind blows and everybody catches you sitting down. Not good. We just bust out laughing. That was in the middle of the game.”

But the laughter carries weight. Sanders said that everywhere he goes, people approach him about family members or friends dealing with the exact same issues. They thank him for being vocal about it. That’s the point of all this openness. He’s stripping away the stigma that keeps people isolated and ashamed about incontinence, catheters, and everything else that comes with surviving cancer. 

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