Slive happy with SEC despite some black eyes

With over 600 credentialed reporters and more than 20 radio stations broadcasting live from Hoover, Ala., for SEC football media days, the conference has never been stronger.

Sure, there’s the recent issues that have plagued Tennessee and South Carolina. Then, there’s the media circus surrounding UT head coach Phillip Fulmer’s return to the event after a one-year absence.

However, the negatives pale in comparison to the positives and Slive knows it. Steve Spurrier is back in the league coaching at South Carolina. So is one of the hottest young coaches in the country, Florida’s Urban Meyer.

Auburn is coming off an undefeated season and even the storied Crimson Tide appears to be on the mend with Brodie Croyle returning to the starting lineup for Alabama.

Times are good for Slive and the SEC. As he begins his third football season at the helm, the seventh commissioner in the history of the conference was more than willing to sit down and talk.

Q: How good is it to have Steve Spurrier back in the league?

A: It’s great to have him back. It’s a great league. He’s very successful. He creates interest in the South Carolina program. It’s a program that’s sort of been on the cusp. The stronger all of our programs are the better off all of us are.

Q: Do you expect bumps in the road early with instant replay which the SEC will begin using this year?

A: Yeah. I think (SEC Director of Officials) Bobby Gaston, when he made his presentation yesterday (Wednesday), was trying to say that he anticipated that happening. That’s not that we want to. We are doing everything in our power to make sure that this whole program works. Back in our offices we had a full day of everybody in, all the equipment, all the replay officials, television producers, everybody to spend an intense day training and getting ready. We’re also going to do some scrimmages this fall. We did some games in the spring. So we’re doing everything we can to train. We have the best available equipment. We have all of our television people involved. I’m satisfied that when we kick it off we will have done what we need to do. But it is an experiment. We probably will have a glitch or two. But I’m pretty satisfied that we’ve got this under control.

Q: Are there any new alliances that might come up in the bowl lineup?

A: If you look at our bowl lineup as we go into our final year of the current contract, we have the best bowl lineup in the country. Part of that is because we have three January 1 games. No other league gets near it. What every other league was trying to do during the last few months is take away one of our New Year’s Day bowls. But we’ve got that fixed. I know people in Knoxville are concerned about the Outback Bowl. We’ve really had some very quality conversations with them. I think you will not see the kinds of issues that we had a couple years ago. You will not see that again.

Q: How concerned are you about off the field issues that have seemed to crop up all at once in the SEC?

A: First of all it’s not just the SEC. The issue of student-athlete behavior is a national issue and one that we just need to pay attention to. This league has been very proactive with putting together a program with the New England Center for Study of Sport and Society. We’re bringing folks to our campuses. We all have an obligation. We’re all in this together. Our student-athletes play for the league and play for our universities. I think we need something in place that helps teach them some methods, some coping mechanisms to help them understand a thought process that when they find themselves in pressure off-the-field situations that there are certain ways to react and have some tools to deal with issues to learn to walk away, to learn to help each other. We’re all involved in that. It’s all part of educating and teaching. Our goal is to make sure our student-athletes play for the national championship, get a quality education, graduate and have the tools, athletically, academically and emotionally, to be productive, successful and happy people and lead good lives. I think we may have ignored the emotional side and we’re trying to make a contribution there.

Q: Are there any programs that you point at, in the SEC or otherwise, that you say, ‘They’re doing the right thing?’

A: I don’t think any of our institutions are ignoring this issue. I think coach (Phillip) Fulmer talked about it straight up. One of the things that we’ve tried to do in the last three years that I’ve been here and I think our coaches too is simply this: We all have responsibilities. We’re all in this together. We’re also willing to talk about it publicly. We’re also willing to put sunshine on it whether it’s infractions or student-athlete behavior. My only concern is that when we do that sometimes people then decide the SEC has more problems than other leagues, which is not the case. So what I try to do is make sure we discuss all these issues in the context of national behavior.

Q: As far as the recent decision that came down granting $30 million from Tom Culpepper to Ronnie Cottrell, do you worry that a decision like that will set a precedent that could scare away whistleblowers in the future?

A: I’ll tell you my cardinal principle here. I joined this league in July 2002. What I do is look forward and never backward. All of that came about before I got here. The NCAA enforcement process is a process that ought to always be looked at. The important answer for me is that we have developed a process in our league. The process is designed to help our coaches deal with these kinds of issues in a way that the administrators in the conference take some responsibility for it. I think that’s working well. For me to speculate what it all means is really not productive for me.

Q: The concern I have is that you almost need a whistleblower at some point to uncover some of these things for the NCAA to do their job. I wonder if that scares some of them away.

A: Well that’s your terminology. We have a written adopted policy that we’ve shared with all the media and everyone else that tells the coaches, ‘If you see something you have a place to take it. You take it to your athletic director.’ The institution then evaluates the information and then the AD or the President takes it on. It’s not the coach’s responsibility. He reports it or she reports it. If it’s quality probative information it comes through the institution to the conference to me and my staff and then we have responsibilities. I think we have a good process in place. It was unanimously adopted. It’s been in play for a little over a year and we’re doing quite well.

Q: On your list of concerns in the SEC, how worried are you about fans rushing the field?

A: It is a passionate league. There are people that disagree with what we’ve done. We have the penalties. But the penalties came about because our athletic directors put together a sub-committee recommended. It was voted unanimously to put it in place by our AD’s and by our presidents. I think our concern was we’ve had some people hurt. You just read about a lawsuit in some other conference. If we can help save one or two people from catastrophic injury then I think it’s worth it. Then people ask me, ‘What if it’s two people? What if it’s five people?’ I say, ‘We’ll work our way through those issues.’ The goal here is our coaches and our players and our fans, their health and safety is primary.

Q: What do you think of the possibility of a playoff instead of the current bowl system?

A: We’re a proponent of the bowl system. We’re not in favor of an NFL-style playoff. Our primary goal is to protect the regular season.

Q: Are you considering the ‘plus one’ national championship game that would match the top two teams after the conclusion of the bowls?

A: At some point I would like to take a look at that.

Slive was interviewed on the Morning Sports Animals with Dave Hooker and Jeff Jacoby, which airs from 6-9 a.m. weekday mornings on 99.1 FM, 99.3 FM and 990 AM.