The ‘Coach Prime’ effect is radically changing life in Boulder, Colorado

LOS ANGELES — There is exactly one soul food restaurant in Boulder, Colorado, a mom-and-daughter catering company located a mile from the University of Colorado campus.

And ever since Deion Sanders came to town, Isha Rae has been hell-bent on getting him and the Buffs to try her grub.

Recently, she looked up Colorado’s new-look football roster and sent an email to just about every Black person she could find, complete with pictures of offerings from her restaurant: Rae’s and Kay’s Melting Pot, offering a mix of soul food and Puerto Rican cuisine cooked by Rae and mom Char Kay. Collard greens. Ribs. Cornbread. Somebody was going to respond once they saw this, Rae figured, in a town where the next-nearest search for a soul food place rumbles you well up Route 36 to Gunbarrel.

Sure enough, it worked. So Rae and Kay found themselves in an elevator on Colorado’s Boulder campus on Tuesday, invited to come drop off some food for Sanders’ staff to try to set up a catering arrangement. Marveling, as the button dinged for each floor, just how many Black students were filtering in and out.

For years, Rae felt like she could pick out everyone who was Black in Boulder, a city with a tiny African-American population. And suddenly, on CU’s campus, Rae said, she felt like she was “almost down South.”

“Walking out, I was like, ‘There are so many Black people on this campus!’” Rae said, referring to a conversation with a member of the CU staff.

“And he was like, ‘Yeah, Deion brought them all.’”

In one swift motion since his December hire, Sanders has razed a rotting edifice of a football program and remodeled it into a content machine, a perfect storm of explosive talent behind his viral image. It’s brought an energy to Colorado football, said Rep. Leslie Herod, that the state’s never seen.

And most of all, Sanders’ presence, an African-American leader who has bristled with authentic confidence and embraced national attention, has brought a wave of Black interest that Rae called “heartwarming” to a predominantly-white town. Local tourism has boomed to unprecedented levels, invigorating tailgates and sports bars and hotels – projecting $100 million of local economic impact across six home games, Boulder mayor Aaron Brockett said. And for the first time in school history, Colorado has sold out every home football game this season.

Tickets flew off the shelves so fast for USC’s visit Saturday that Brockett – to repeat, the mayor of Boulder – couldn’t even snag a seat.

“I just don’t get no respect,” Brockett quipped.

‘Making people ask the question – where are the Black folks before today?’

Before packed houses at Folsom Field came packed houses at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, the sellouts just the same for Coach Prime at Jackson State, seats and surrounding hotels filled to the brim any direction you pointed.

But after two years of elevating an HBCU to national headlines, calling for action on Jackson’s water crisis and setting in motion discussions for a new football stadium, Sanders left for the Rockies. And Jackson, said Dr. Timothy Norris – a therapist and owner of Mom’s Dream Kitchen in Jackson – never quite capitalized on Sanders’ presence the way it could have.

Those conversations on a new stadium have stalled, Norris said. Enthusiasm, he said after attending a game last Saturday against Bethune-Cookman, has deflated. The average attendance at Veterans Memorial in 2022 was 44,354, according to the Mississippi Clarion Ledger; against Bethune-Cookman, it was 23,681.

“It’s been like, we had this big balloon and somebody stuck this pin in it,” Norris said, “and now the air’s been taken out.”

It’s disheartening, Norris said, because he’s seen with Boulder what could have been in Jackson. Seen friends, from the Jackson State program, heading with Sanders to CU, talking about how Sanders has instigated conversations with local officials about what the program can do for the state of Colorado.

The demographics and dynamics of Jackson and Boulder, to be sure, are worlds different. But this was about capitalizing on Sanders’ colossal presence to elicit simple change. Immediately after Sanders was hired, he reached out to the Colorado Black Caucus to make sure “his Black athletes don’t leave and feel safe and supported,” Harod said, in Boulder.

The coach led an effort, Harod described, to support an NIL bill that passed in the Colorado General Assembly in June. And on Thursday, too, the Museum of Boulder is opening an exhibit celebrating Black history in Colorado – all a part of the “Prime effect,” as Harod said.

“It’s making people ask the question – where are the Black folks before today? Why are people coming … does Boulder really want Black people in town?” Harod said. “And I think the answer to that is yes.”

‘There is power in diversity’

On the night of the Colorado-Colorado State game on Sept. 16, about 15 Black college students showed up to Rae’s and Kay’s out of nowhere, having Googled “soul food” in the Boulder area and finding an address, Rae said.

Rae’s and Kay’s, for three years, has run largely on a catering model. But Rae was happy to have the business. And the kids bought her out for the night.

“With Deion coming, and bringing just a flood of African-American people who want our food specifically – we have had a really great summer,” Rae said.

Indeed, the Coach Prime effect has brought local tourism back to Boulder, said Chris Vripps, director of operations at Boulder hotspot bar-and-grill Dark Horse. According to Boulder’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, CU football’s home opener against Nebraska on Sept. 9 generated a total estimated economic impact of $17 million to the area, up 70% from a home game the same time last year. And the total number of visitors about doubled the amount of available hotel rooms in Boulder, the ripple effects of Coach Prime frenzy felt out to surrounding areas in Colorado.

“What I hope is that it shows,” Harod said, “there is power in diversity. That there’s money in diversity. And that there is economic development and growth in diversity.”

Hope springs eternal, now, in Boulder, after a decade-plus of desolation and exactly two Colorado seasons with winning records since 2006. A swath of people come through on gamedays who don’t even have tickets, Brockett said, just to tailgate. The Dark Horse is packed quite literally to its 400-person capacity for every home game; the establishment sold approximately 300 breakfast burritos, Vripps said, before CU-Nebraska even kicked off.

Boulder is a college town, said USC receiver Brenden Rice, who transferred from CU in 2022. The fans, Rice smiled, were always a sleeping giant.

“And Deion Sanders,” Rice said Wednesday, “was able to come wake them up.”