Deion Sanders Shares Personal Update on Health Following Cancer Diagnosis

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Cole Sullivan | Last updated Sep 23, 2025 11:39 AM ET

It’s been quite the year for Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, who earned his second win of the season over the weekend against Wyoming, improving to 2-2 on the young season.

However, he got off to a slow start in his third season in Boulder due to ongoing health issues following a non-muscle invasive bladder cancer diagnosis in April.

Rather than undergo a roughly 36-week course of chemotherapy, Sanders opted to have his bladder removed and reconstructed.

Several months later, he is now cancer-free. While adjusting post-surgery — often joking about "depending on Depends," the adult undergarment brand — he opened up in an exclusive interview with Michael Strahan on "Good Morning America."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Good Morning America (@goodmorningamerica)

"It was tough," he said. "So, I remember laying there and they said, 'Well, you need to go try to pee.' That was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt in my life."

"I remember just on the ground in the bathroom, and I'm just screaming because it was so much pain," he added.

Sanders spoke about raising awareness and the importance of being honest about his diagnosis.

"You know how many people's goin' through this foolishness?" Sanders added. "But men never talk about stuff like this. We hide it 'cause we wanna be big and strong and massive and not vulnerable. No, man. This is real. This is what I'm dealing with.

"I choose to rise up, man, not to stay down. I choose to share," he continued. "And I want everybody to understand you can make it, man. 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."

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: