How did Deion Sanders convince Marshall Faulk and Warren Sapp to coach with him in Colorado? The two Hall of Famers explain.

You might have done some double-takes if you've looked closely at the sidelines of Colorado Buffaloes games over the past two years. Not one, but three members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame are on the coaching staff of the football team.

In addition to Head Coach Deion Sanders, one of the best cornerbacks to ever play in the NFL, Warren Sapp is a "senior quality control analyst" for the defense,  and Marshall Faulk is the running backs coach. Sapp joined the coaching staff last year and stayed on for a second year, while Faulk joined this year -- after what he says was a lot of convincing from Coach Prime.

Sapp and Faulk each made special appearances on "Coach Prime's Playbook with Romi Bean" this month.

Sapp wants CU athletes to "paint with bold strokes"

Last week, Sapp -- a terror to opposing quarterbacks throughout his college and pro playing career -- told Bean on the CBS Colorado Sports show that Sanders inspired him to both finish his college degree and start coaching.

"I told him, 'I love you to death, but there's no way in hell I'm coming to Mississippi,'" he said, referring to when Sanders was head coach of the Jackson State football team and invited Sapp to coach with him. After Sanders got to Colorado and called Sapp again, he joined the coaching staff, now armed with a bachelor's degree, which was a requirement for him to join.

Sapp says the hardest part of coaching and the most gratifying part of the job are the same: the athletes.

"It's the young men I get to work with and try to mold, and then you can get so frustrated with them that- almost like your kids, but you love them so much that, you know, it'll be all right," he said. "It's just the evolving door of trying to teach young men that think they know everything, what they know after they know everything, because that's what's really important."

Sapp says his coaching style strikes a balance between love and toughness -- something he feels is often necessary to reach the players, based on his own experiences.

"If I can't reach you, I can't teach you. So I've tried to make it fun. I'm in their face, no doubt about it, and there's a standard we will play to. And there's something I'm expecting of you, young man. And if you're not expecting of yourself, then I need to change your perception of yourself, because I see so much. And if you're not visualizing this, I gotta get you to see what I'm seeing," he said. "The world is your canvas. Paint with bold strokes."

His biggest pet peeves in games are "things that you can control," which include offsides, other pre-snap penalties, and what he called "mental mistakes."

"Listen, I understand you got school, parents, all that good stuff, but there's a time and a place to prioritize what you've got going," he said. "Trust me, this will be your breadwinner if you make it, and what you put into this game, you will get out of it."

Faulk is getting "into the mindset of being more of an educator"

This week, Bean sat down with Faulk -- the 2000 MVP and a three-time offensive player of the year in the NFL and a star at San Diego State -- who had never considered coaching until now.

"(Sanders) had me come up a couple of times, and then he was like, 'hey, what do you think of this?' And I gave it some thought," Faulk said. "The deciding factor was the fact that I played football, and I was I wasn't around my kids growing up young, and as they were getting older, I was like, 'I want to be there for them, so I'm not going to do anything that takes me away from them.'"

Ironically, it was that very consideration that ultimately helped sell him on taking the gig.

"I have my youngest, she's a senior in high school," he said. "So I asked her, I was like, 'hey, I have this opportunity. What do you think?' And she was like, 'Dad, Colorado is one of the schools on my list' (...) So it all worked out."

Faulk credits other former players who started coaching with helping him see the game through the players' eyes.

"I catch myself sometimes. I watch him, I'm like, 'how do you not see that?' And I'm like, 'not me. He's not me,'" he said. "So then I try to figure out, 'how do I teach what I know? How do I teach what I saw?' And so it gets me into the mindset of being more of an educator instead of an evaluator or spectator."

Throughout that process, Faulk says he tries to find a happy medium between coaching to a standard and playing to the students' strengths.

"There's so many different ways to play the position, and that there's a standard to how I want the position to be played within the room. But then I coached them all differently to what their talents and capabilities are," he said. "I give them so much room to go out and paint their own picture, but they gotta draw within the lines."

The biggest lesson Faulk says he wants to impart on the players is how to lose a game and retain your pride.

"I forgot about losing," he admitted.

"I only remember how fun the game was when you won and now you get back into it and (losing) sucks," he said while laughing.

Faulk says he's remembering his time as a freshman in college, playing for the first time under a new coach, and trying to be patient with his players as a result. But with that memory came the fond realization that his old college football is, once again, nearby.

"I remember being that kid, walking into a locker room 18, some strange man is giving me advice, saying he's gonna change my life and those relationships that I made, they still exist. And it's funny that we're here, we're in Colorado, and the guy who helped me -- Sean Payton -- that was my coach when I was in college, is now the coach in Denver, and we're here at the same time."