🏈 SEC picks Sankey to replace Slive as commissioner

[BAMANEWSBOT]

Greg Sankey has been Mike Slive's right-hand man at the Southeastern Conference the past 12 years and now he's been tabbed to replace him in a move widely expected for months.

Sankey will replace Slive as SEC commissioner starting Aug. 1 after more than two years of handling the league's day-to-day operations.

Vanderbilt Chancellor Nick Zeppos, the president of the SEC presidents and chancellors, announced Sankey's appointment today. Slive, the SEC's commissioner since 2002, said in October he would retire effective July 31 and that he was receiving treatment for a recurrence of prostate cancer.

Sankey is in his 13th year with the SEC and has served as the conference's executive associate commissioner and chief operating officer for the league office since 2012, freeing Slive to concentrate on major projects like the SEC Network and College Football Playoffs. Before joining the SEC staff, Sankey was the Southland Conference commissioner for nearly seven years starting when he was just 31.

Arkansas Chancellor David Gearhart headed the search committee that decided on Slive's replacement. Gearhart said in a release, "Greg possesses all of the traits we were searching for in the next commissioner of the SEC."

"He has shown tremendous leadership in his existing role in the conference office and he exudes a passion for the student-athlete that is critical for the new era of college athletics that we have entered," Gearhart said. "He is the right person to lead the SEC at an important time in our history."

Sankey, who will be introduced at a news conference Friday morning in Nashville, before the SEC men's basketball tournament semifinals, has the challenging task of replacing one of the most powerful figures in college sports.

"Greg is knowledgeable and experienced and will be a natural addition around our Commissioner's table," Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford said.

Under Slive's leadership, the SEC became the nation's premier football conference, dug out from under a pile of NCAA compliance issues and won seven consecutive BCS titles from 2006-12. In a release, Sankey said he was "honored" to follow Slive as the SEC's commissioner.

Praise from around the SEC poured in for Stankey after the announcement.

Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs raved about Sankey's integrity, saying he is "the most intelligent athletic administrator I know" and "the perfect person to lead the Southeastern Conference."


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[Bamabww]

Sankey has the challenging task of replacing one of the most powerful figures in college sports.

Big shoes to fill without a doubt. Good luck to him.

 

[BAMANEWSBOT]

Who is Greg Sankey? 10 things to know about the man replacing Mike Slive as the SEC's...

Greg Sankey was officially named Mike Slive's successor and the eighth commissioner of the Southeastern Conference on Thursday. Here are 10 things you need to know about the man who will be running the powerhouse football conference beginning on August 1.

Continue reading...

 

[sean]

Big shoes to fill without a doubt. Good luck to him.

my thoughts, exactly.

Mike Slive did a lot of good for this conference and now it's up to Sankey to keep that going.

 

[Bamabww]

March 14, 2015

HURT: Plenty of isues for Sankey to tackle in SEC

Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist

In a lighter moment during the Nashville press conference introducing Greg Sankey as the Commissioner-Select of the SEC, a reporter who will be mercifully unnamed (no, it wasn't me) prefaced a question with "Mike, what are your views on..."

"It's Greg," Sankey replied to much laughter.

The mistake was inadvertent but, in a certain sense, you could, understand it. Sankey, considered the front-runner for the job since the day Mike Slive announced he was stepping down, is being brought aboard to maintain continuity. That doesn't mean Sankey won't be his own man, but the universal view, expressed colloquially, is that the SEC ain't broke and don't need fixing.
On the other hand, Sankey is no mere caretaker hire. The dynamic world of intercollegiate athletics demands the SEC has to be bold in an increasingly competitive environment.

"Mike is leaving an incredible legacy," Sankey said. "We've enjoyed great success and support as a conference. We have overcome many of our compliance challenges of the last 12 years. The diversity among our coaches has changed for the better...Mike Slive's legacy will shape the SEC long into the future.

"Yet we're not done. We're not close to being done. The SEC is poised to make a difference in the lives of student-athletes for generations."

Sankey did advocate for a patient course on several of the burning issues of the day in college sports. He was asked about freshman ineligibility, an agenda that has been pushed more vigorously by other leagues with each game that one-and-done dominated Kentucky wins in basketball.

"We have standards that are going into effect in 2016," he said, citing academic measures that would create "targeted freshman ineligibility."

"It will be a part of the dialog going forward, but I think we need to be careful before we jump down a road too quickly."
After that, Sankey spoke of an SEC that may not expand in its number of members ("that's not on my top shelf," he said when asked that question) but in terms of national and, particularly, global interest.

That doesn't mean Sankey - who spent much of his youth and college life in New York, not Nashville or New Orleans - will spend more time trying to tap into the emerging Malaysian market and ignore the core values that have helped bring the SEC to prominence - including football. Asked about the future of the College Football Playoff, Sankey showed that he had given the issue plenty of thought.

"I think four is a good number (of teams)," he said. "I was a commissioner of a 1-AA conference (the Southland) when the 1-AA playoffs had 16. I don't think that people who advocate for that (number) have really thought that through in terms of the toll that's taken, not only on the players but on people participating ... in the overall infrastructure.

"I think what happened last year was great. I think it would have been even greater had an SEC team won that national championship, and that will be our focus in the future."

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[UAgrad93]

Big shoes to fill without a doubt. Good luck to him.

BIG?? Those shoes are as big as a set of NIKEs on King Kong!!! Kramer had the vision to push the SEC to the front with the conference championship game, but Slive made the SEC the monster it is today. Sankey better have taken A LOT of notes while he was the understudy to Slive. If I'm Sankey, I keep Slive on speed dial, position #1!!