Today’s SEC not just for good ol’ boys
Mike Slive listened, maybe his greatest talent as the SEC commissioner, and he liked what he heard.
He liked hearing someone point out that the conference is negotiating a new round of TV deals from a position of uncommon strength that would require drug testing, if you could drug test a conference.
Two straight BCS titles. Two straight women’s basketball titles. Two out of three men’s basketball titles, which ain’t bad for a football league.
Slive listened and liked all this so much he couldn’t contain himself.
And he started to smile.
Woe unto the network execs who sit across the table from that smile. They don’t make wide-angle lenses that wide.
One question remains now that the SEC’s movers and shakers have moved on after another spring meeting.
Why would anyone in this conference ever stop smiling?
The world will little note nor long remember what happened here in the last week, but a major shift, in personality if not policy, continued.
At its annual banquet, the SEC paid tribute to two long-time power brokers, LSU’s Skip Bertman and Mississippi State’s Larry Templeton, who’ve been’ retired from their AD jobs according to someone else’s timetable.
al.com
6/1/08
