\n

FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 It\u2019s less than an hour after Colorado, a 20 1\/2-point underdog, shocked No. 17 TCU \u2014 and the entire college football establishment \u2014 and disbelief hangs over Amon G. Carter Stadium. A few hundred yards away, Constance Schwartz-Morini sits in the back of a black SUV heading to a private airport, sifting through her smartphone as hundreds of congratulatory messages pour in.<\/p>\n

Schwartz-Morini is one of the few leaving TCU who isn\u2019t the least bit surprised at what she witnessed. A Colorado team that finished 1-11 last year, newly led by NFL legend Deion Sanders, underwent the biggest roster overhaul in college football history and just defeated an opponent that played for the College Football Playoff national championship last season.<\/p>\n

A New Yorker with a deep Rolodex of sports contacts, Schwartz-Morini is Sanders\u2019 business partner and manager, and much like Colorado\u2019s new head coach, is like nothing college football has seen before.<\/p>\n

Snoop Dogg calls Schwartz-Morini \u201ca consigliere.\u201d Sanders calls her \u201ca visionary\u201d and a \u201cpit bull in pumps.\u201d Colorado athletic director Rick George calls her \u201cunique,\u201d and says she has both Sanders\u2019 and Colorado\u2019s \u201cbest interest in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: Will Deion Sanders be a target in next NFL coaching search? League execs say \u2018definitely\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the car, one of the first calls she makes is to Sanders, fresh off of his first FBS victory, led by his son Shedeur, who threw for a school-record 510 yards. The call is brief. The tone is celebratory. Schwartz-Morini informs him that during the broadcast, Sanders was featured in three national commercials \u2014 an Aflac ad co-starring Nick Saban; a new campaign for California Almonds; and a third, for KFC, which included his entire family.<\/p>\n

It was a big day for Colorado, Deion Sanders and his brand.<\/p>\n

The advertisements were all shot before Sanders\u2019 surgeries to remove blood clots in both legs this offseason, and Schwartz-Morini had forgotten they were scheduled to run during the nationally televised season opener. Her team at SMAC Entertainment \u2014 it stands for Sports Media and Culture and includes Michael Strahan, Erin Andrews and Wiz Khalifa among its clients \u2014 knew the spots would be airing. Still, she\u2019d been so focused on the Buffaloes\u2019 debut that she didn\u2019t realize it until she was in George\u2019s suite. Seemingly every time she looked up at the TV, Coach Prime was on the screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a group text going with my team: \u2018This is amazing!\u2019\u201d Schwartz-Morini says. \u201cYes, it was exciting to win this first game, which we all knew he could, but it\u2019s the first game. We have a long season ahead of us. I\u2019m thankful for the brand partners for believing as well, but we are also now taking a breath. \u2026 We\u2019ve got a long few months ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

A Yonkers, N.Y., native, Schwartz-Morini grew up a fan of the Yankees, Giants and Rangers. Her dad, a former Marine, worked for MTA, the public transit authority. Her mom was a schoolteacher who later became a florist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a blue-collar kid through and through,\u201d she says proudly. \u201cI always say I grew up in the shadow of Scarsdale, and then I grew up in the shadow of Syracuse going to SUNY-Oswego, so I had an attitude out of the gate.\u201d<\/p>\n

She graduated in the early 1990s in what she describes as the \u201cdark ages\u201d \u2014 as in pre-internet. She sought a career in advertising; she loved the creative element and was drawn to the idea of creating campaigns. She signed up with an employment agency, which pointed her toward an entry-level job with NFL Properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was similar to how my whole career has gone. My gut just went off \u2014 that\u2019s where I belong,\u201d Schwartz-Morini says.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for her, that job had been filled. She was advised to get office experience and learn everything she could in that capacity. So she did. Ten months later, she returned to the employment agency to inquire about any opportunities within the NFL. A job with Maureen Rosen, vice president of corporate sponsorships at NFL Properties, had opened. It would prove to be Schwartz-Morini\u2019s big break.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce she saw how eager and hungry and capable I was, she said the more I could handle, the more she would let me do,\u201d she says of Rosen.<\/p>\n

Schwartz-Morini worked at the NFL for a decade, eventually becoming the league\u2019s director of television programming and entertainment marketing.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Rosen) taught me everything she knew, and there were certain lessons that she taught me that to this day that I pass on to everybody that has ever worked with us at SMAC,\u201d Schwartz-Morini says. \u201cThat is the golden rule, which is, when you mess up \u2014 I use a different word \u2014 which you\u2019re going to do, you have to own it and go right to your boss and say I messed up. Because the more that you try to lie about something or just do it on your own, it\u2019ll snowball and then it\u2019s just too hard to ever fix it. That\u2019s literally the golden rule of working with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2001, Schwartz-Morini left the NFL to become a vice president at talent management agency The Firm, creating its strategic marketing and sponsorship division. For almost a decade, she managed Snoop Dogg as his career soared well beyond his music and helped him launch the Snoop Youth Football League. She was also the driving force behind Michael Strahan\u2019s transition from Super Bowl champion defensive lineman to Emmy-winning host, TV producer, entrepreneur and bestselling author. In 2011, she and Strahan co-founded SMAC.<\/p>\n

Though Schwartz-Morini had met Sanders while working at the NFL, the relationship grew through Snoop Dogg\u2019s annual Snooper Bowl game, where his teams often competed against those in Deion\u2019s Truth youth football program.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter one of those games, he called me and said, \u2018I\u2019m looking for a new team. Could you tell me who handles Snoop\u2019s marketing or Snoop\u2019s PR?\u2019 I said, \u2018I do,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cAnd he just kept asking all these questions, and I said, \u2018Well, do you want to work with me?\u2019 He said, \u2018That would be great. Let\u2019s meet on that.\u2019 And that\u2019s how our relationship really started.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was about 14 years ago. In 2011, the Super Bowl and the Snooper Bowl were in Dallas. The league\u2019s \u201cNFL Honors\u201d broadcast wanted to introduce the new Hall of Fame class, but Sanders, one of the candidates expected to be announced, was preoccupied. His team and Snoop\u2019s team were playing amidst an unusual ice storm. As everyone shoveled snow off the field, the show producer pleaded with Schwartz-Morini to get Sanders over there.<\/p>\n

But she pushed back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018He\u2019s in the middle of a game for his kids. He\u2019s not leaving. If it happens, call me, we\u2019ll figure it out,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

So Schwartz-Morini improvised. She grabbed Snoop.<\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t you stop the game and make this announcement?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really special because those guys are real friends, not Hollywood friends,\u201d she says. \u201cThe fact that they\u2019re amongst the kids and they stopped the game and everybody goes crazy and they announce that he\u2019s going in (to the Hall of Fame), and we are all muddy head-to-toe. We couldn\u2019t even get his car out because the parking lot was just stacked. A team mom had this small two-door car, and we jumped in, all muddy, and raced over to where NFL Honors was broadcasting, and he just went out in his coaching gear. But that is who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

In 2020, Deion Sanders was at a crossroads. And if not for Schwartz-Morini\u2019s influence, he might be spending his Saturdays fishing. After three seasons as offensive coordinator at Trinity Christian School in Cedar Hill, Texas, Sanders\u2019 youngest son, Shedeur, was graduating. And Sanders wasn\u2019t sure what to do next.<\/p>\n

Prime was at a shoot for NFL Network when Schwartz-Morini stopped by.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been baking one of my ideas, and I\u2019m ready to tell you about it,\u201d Sanders told her. He had reached out to the athletic director at Florida State; he wanted to help his alma mater recruit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018What do you mean, you wanna help them recruit?\u2019\u201d Schwartz-Morini recalls. \u201c\u2018Why would you help them recruit? Why wouldn\u2019t you just go for it and be a head coach?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he looked at me with this pause, like he does when he\u2019s processing, and he said, \u2018You\u2019re right. Let\u2019s go for it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwartz-Morini called a friend who was a coaching agent to seek guidance. Though about 90 percent of FBS head coaches are represented by one of four firms that each have been in the game for decades, that detail was hardly a deterrent.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s an innovator, a creator, smart, intelligent, but mostly she\u2019s timely. Very timely,\u201d Sanders, 56, says. \u201cShe knows what she wants, and she\u2019s not gonna give in.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe pretty much established the whole team that was behind the scenes. She got all the intricate details of helping me prepare for my interviews, which was phenomenal with all the intel that you need to prepare, and just connecting all the dots of the who\u2019s who behind the curtains that I had no idea about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hired by HBCU Jackson State in 2020, Sanders went 27-6 at a school that hadn\u2019t had a winning season in the previous six years. Sanders\u2019 team and staff tapped into social media to provide observers with a rare window into a program that became a fascination. Fans couldn\u2019t get enough of them. Jackson State set an FCS attendance record for back-to-back seasons, averaging 43,500 fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not comparing coaching youth football and high school to the collegiate level, but when you\u2019re Deion Sanders, and you\u2019re a Hall of Famer, the only athlete to have played in a World Series and a Super Bowl, and have this commitment to these children, I knew he could do this if given the opportunity,\u201d Schwartz-Morini says. \u201cAnd now as he said, \u2018Do you believe?\u2019 I think people are catching on to our partnership and our vision, and just his belief in faith and his belief in kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cPrime Effect\u201d at Colorado was instantaneous. Many of his Jackson State players \u2014 including his sons Shedeur, a gifted quarterback, and Shilo, a heady defensive back; and two-way star Travis Hunter \u2014 followed him to Boulder to a program that had been insignificant for 20 years. While the media picked Colorado to finish 11th in the Pac-12 preseason poll and outsiders scoffed at his unorthodox methods, some of those same skeptics are doing a 180 to hop on the Buffaloes bandwagon.<\/p>\n

Season tickets sold out for the first time in 27 years within four months of his arrival. Colorado\u2019s Buff Club, the athletic department\u2019s fundraising arm, has smashed school records with over $28 million in donations \u2014 nearly $8 million more than it received for fiscal 2022. Game tickets are at a premium; the cheapest available for the Buffaloes\u2019 home opener against Nebraska on Saturday was $350. And on Nike\u2019s website, all the Deion-related Colorado items are sold out. Coach Prime famously may not be hard to find, but T-shirts and workout apparel branded with his mantras now are.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Operation Coach Prime. I\u2019m like, fire up the factories!\u201d Schwartz-Morini says. \u201cThey\u2019ve already sold out of everything at the bookstore. They sold out of everything online. So I\u2019m like, how do we amp this up?\u201d<\/p>\n