A regular day in the life of Coach Prime’s Director of Player Personnel might look just like the usual. Discussing the non-orthodox recruiting strategies with Coach Prime and doing his daily duties might be an everyday thing for Corey Philips, the Director of Player Personnel at Colorado. However, it only became possible after 2023 that Philips could fully concentrate on the work he had on hand. Before that, right from 2019, he was riddled with the concern of his mother’s chronic condition.

In his interview with the Pregame Network aired on July 12, Corey Philips opened up on his journey of getting his life back on track after donating a kidney. It all started in 2019 when Philips’ mother was diagnosed with stage 4 renal failure. To make matters worse for Philips and his family, the pandemic struck in 2020. The tough times pushed the CU staffer to his very limits, testing him in every way. Iterating his struggle, Philips mentioned how he ” couldn’t be around my mom as much as I wanted to be.” Explaining how he had to leave his work and travel to his mom, just for him to “wave at her through a window,” despite her critical condition.

“So I took matters into my own hands,” Philips admitted. “One day I asked her if could she get a transplant. She asked her doctor and on July 11, 2023, I donated a kidney to my mom,” Corey Philips said with a proud smile on his face in the interview. Philips did not hesitate one second when the doctors assured him that he could live off one kidney and that he was a match for his mother. A 4-and-a-half-hour procedure later, Philips woke up feeling a bit nauseous. After the crucial surgery on July 11, 2023, which marked a year yesterday, the Cu staffer highlighted how football helped him get his life back on track.

Football got Corey Philips back on track.

“I donated July 11th. I showed back up the second day of camp,” Philips highlighted in his interview. All thanks to the team Deion Sanders has built in Colorado, Philips was able to get back to work while he was recovering. The CU staffer extended a special token of gratitude to Deion Sanders, saying, “The greatest thing that could have happened for me was that team last year.”

Apparently, being on the green grass and working was “therapeutic” for Philips, something that he enjoyed doing even when he was recovering from a major surgery. “The game of football helped me with the recovery,” Philips confessed. Well, it’s not every day that we see people recovering from a kidney transplant surgery at work. Kudos to Deion Sanders and Co. for creating a positive work environment for his staffers.