The University of Colorado’s new head football coach may want to engage in “religious exercises” with the team’s members and staff. But a group supporting the separation of church and state wants the university to censor such activities.

In a Feb. 1 letter to the University of Colorado Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano, the Freedom From Religion Foundation alleged Sanders had been engaging in “inappropriate and unconstitutional actions” by “engaging in religious exercises with players and staff members.” Sanders only took over as Colorado’s coach in December, but the letter from the FFRF specifically mentions that period.

“It is our understanding that on Dec. 20, a staff member led other staff members in a Christian prayer to start an official meeting,” FFRF’s letter read in part. “More egregiously, on Jan. 16, Coach Sanders directed a staff member to lead players and coaches in Christian prayer before a team meeting.”

In the letter, the atheist group singled out one of Coach Prime’s prayers with the football team:

“Lord, we thank You for this day, Father, for this opportunity as a group. Father, we thank You for the movement that God has put us in place to be in charge of. We thank You for each player here, each coach, each family. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.”

According to News One, the letter asserted that numerous legal precedents, including a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, prohibited such religious activities in educational settings and suggested that student-athletes may feel pressured to participate even if doing so conflicts with their religious convictions.

 

Sanders has purportedly received “training” and “guidance on the boundaries in which players and coaches may and may not engage in religious expression,” according to the University of Colorado’s response to the FFRF’s letter. The university asserted that Sanders was “very receptive to this training and came away from it with a better understanding of the University of Colorado’s policies.”

Due to the demands of the FFRF letter and the response from the University of Colorado, Sanders is facing a dilemma he never had to experience while coaching the football team at Jackson State University.

Coach Prime often referred to his religious beliefs and commitment to God as the main principles of his coaching philosophy and justification for accepting the position at an HBCU. He famously called his contract as Jackson State’s head coach in 2020 “a match made in heaven” and said he had “no doubt” God had a hand in the decision.