The most powerful man in college sports
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.
MIKE SLIVE ARRIVES EARLY, OF COURSE. HE WANTS TO
beat everyone to the punch, from breakfast to dinner and everything in between. He sits at a corner table at Demetri’s BBQ, a perch from which he can peer over his reading glasses and get the lay of the restaurant.
There are SEC fans to see, even at 9:30 a.m. Slive needs to soak up the ambiance of a football Saturday in the SEC, the conference he leads as commissioner. With Florida playing Alabama in nearby Tusculoosa later in the night, fans from both schools are represented. Auburn fans are here as well, and Tennessee fans, too.
“What a great atmosphere,” Slive says, a refrain he will repeat later in the day as he sits in the press box and scans the stands, first at Tiger Stadium on the LSU campus and later at Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium.
thestate.com
10/10/10
Magnolia Tribune
