WEBVTT - Clay Travis spends some time with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:05.720 This is Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis. Play talks 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.840 with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business. 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:21.320 Now here's Clay Trevis. Welcome in the Wins and Losses podcast. 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.319 This is episode three. If you haven't listened to the 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.200 first two, I think you guys will really enjoy it. 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.200 We had Jason Whitlock on episode one from FS one 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.520 Speak for Yourself Episode two, the founder of Rivals and 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:36.840 seven Shannon Terry, incredible entrepreneur, who saw entrepreneur who sold 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.879 both of those for over a hundred million dollars to 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.240 Yahoo and CBS respectively. Goal of the Wins and Losses 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.080 podcast is to try and figure out how you ended 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.200 up where you did, and also focus just as much 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:51.720 on some of the losses you had along the way 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.600 as the winds. It's easy to focus on success, but 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.120 I think that oftentimes when we learned much more from 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:00.360 the losses along the way. We're joined today for our 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:04.160 third episode by SEC Commissioner Greg Sanky. You can find 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.000 him on Twitter at Greg Sanky and tell him what 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.280 a fabulous job you think he has done as SEC Commissioner, 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:12.720 because he gets a lot of hate on there and 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.560 I want you guys to flood him with love. Uh, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.360 Greg Sanky, are you excited to be the third guest 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.319 on the Wins and Losses podcast? Um? I was on 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.240 the first day of your radio broadcast, so I have 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.200 slipped two notches. That's right, you did come on the 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.120 first time. We didn't get the coverage. I remember that 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.480 was outstanding. Well. No, I don't know what where our 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:38.319 relationship has gone awry, but it's worth noting. So I 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.480 to make a point there. I could also have multiple 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:42.720 guests on the radio show, so we weren't the only 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.080 guest on the radio show that day, but you didn't 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.120 make the top three, which would get you a bronze medal. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.240 Um and as an important part of this this program. 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.320 So for people who don't know you, uh, you can 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:55.920 find him on Twitter and again i'd encourage you to 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.440 follow him on Twitter at Greg Sanky. Always encourage people 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.080 to let us know also what you think of these interviews. 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:03.960 Feedback has been phenomenal so far, and I think both 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.280 shanit Terry and Jason Whitlock have appreciated you guys reaching 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.200 out and saying you've been listening. Uh. But Gregg, thank 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.800 you. You You are the secugmission are taking you over for 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.200 Mike's Live. And for a lot of people, that's where 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.400 they started to pay attention to your career, right, That's 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.480 where they suddenly became aware that that you were at 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.320 the SEC office. The step up from number two to 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.640 number one can be massive, and we'll get to that 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.160 for a minute. But before that, you grew up where 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.600 What was your life like when you were a young guy. Yeah, 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.120 I grew up as born in a place called Auburn, 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.239 New York, which is ironic given that a city where 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.240 I was born bears the name of one of the 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.680 universities in the Southeastern Conference. That's about thirty miles west 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.920 of Syracuse, in the Finger Lakes region, as it's known, 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.680 which is pleasant in the summertime and not so nice 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.440 in January and February. Do you remember, Uh, you grew 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.880 up there, so you you're Did you remember watching any 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.720 SEC sporting events when you were growing up in in 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.880 that region? Yeah? Probably the first times would have been 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.840 an n c A men's basketball tournament games. Uh, And 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.360 then you know football games through the the old n 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.200 c A package. People forget and and you know, if 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.040 any people probably listening to the podcast. Don't realize that 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.200 back in the seventies and early eighties, the n t 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.840 A controlled all of college football TV, so there was 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.480 a scarcity of of games on television. So I would 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.000 have watched and when I when I start to have memories, 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.920 probably late teen years, specifically of football games. Uh, you 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:44.600 know Alabama Penn State National Championship game. Um. But Georgia 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.760 when they won with herschel Walker and eighty um, those 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.320 would probably be more resonant for me as it relates 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.640 to the Southeastern Conference. Syracuse University being three miles away, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.080 captured more of the attention at that time in my life. 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.920 So what sports did you play growing up? I played, 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.560 you know, whatever I could. So as as a young kid, 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:07.320 played baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. Um, the ice hockey 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.720 career ended and junior high as I grew to be 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.000 over six ft tall, so basketball took over. So baseball 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.600 and basketball we're focused sports for me. And what were 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:22.640 you best at? Oh, you know, it depends on what 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:24.920 what level. There was probably a time, you know, high 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:29.880 school basketball was pretty good. I played junior college basketball. 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.479 I played baseball in college as well. I love the 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.640 game of baseball. Um, but that doesn't doesn't relate to 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.839 proficiency necessarily. What position do you play in baseball? Catcher? 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.240 What was your what was your strength? Yeah? What was 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:49.120 your strength? Dis catcher? Um, warming up pictures in the bullpen? 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:51.760 So you were not on the field that much. I 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:57.279 was in college as a backup catcher my freshman year. Um, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.000 and so I was. I had caught a knuckleball with regularity, 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.440 which is interesting if you've never had that experience. Uh, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.680 you learn how to pay attention the whole way through 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.800 the pitch motion until it lands in your glove. Literally. Um, 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.960 that's okay defensively, But I was a backup catcher. Uh, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.800 probably learned a few leadership lessons through that, and I 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.480 could bring some energy and enthusiasm to a team. Where 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.360 did you go to school? So you go to college 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:28.040 where and also in New York? Yeah? No, all over Actually, 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.799 so all this discussion about transfers is relevant in my life. 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:33.920 I started out at a small college. I was studying 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.520 electrical engineering in Texas called Laternal College. How in the 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.080 world do you end up there? I? Well, my dad is. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.920 My dad's a welder. He's a Union pipe fitter. Worked 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.160 on the construction job for fifty plush years and worked 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.440 around engineers and wanted to have a son who was 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.800 an engineer. UM, and so I was the firstborn, so 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:57.920 I was the first to have the chance to take 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.080 a run at that experience, and uh studied that for 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:02.960 a couple of years. Wanted to go to Texas. You know, 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.200 it's time to live an adventure. Grown up in upstate 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.440 New York. So it was pretty good engineering school, small 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.000 private college, and that's what put me there. And then 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.800 after a year and a half, I'm like, do I 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.600 really want to be an engineer? I had a uh 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.080 an engineering lab electrical engineering lab every Friday afternoon at 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.159 like four o'clock. And from your college days, I assume 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.480 you can understand that going to an engineering lab and 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.320 studying circuitry at four pm on Fridays did not exactly 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.080 make my heart beat faster. And it just really more 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.760 than that, just started ing raising questions in my mind 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.159 about what is it that I want to do and why? 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.040 And so I ended up back in New York at 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.800 a at a community college, junior college, UM, kind of 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.560 recalibrating state and engineering and then said, you know what, 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.520 I'm gonna be a teacher and coach went into education 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.360 about graduating from Courtland State State University of New York 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.120 System College at Cortland. I call it Courtland State and 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.039 that was about an hour from where I grew up, 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.560 and it was pretty uh, pretty much a utilitarian experience 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.719 for me. I could do that, and I wanted to 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.920 get into coaching at that point, so coached some baseball 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.000 and junior high in high school basketball and ran a 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:18.040 recreation program, just trying to to build a resume really 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.880 early on. So this is like eighties sight seven. So 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.320 when you went to Texas from upstate New York, first 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.600 of all, the weather probably had to blow your mind 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.600 how hot it was. But was that an unbelievable culture 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:32.960 shock for you at that time? Because I I, for 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.240 people out there listening right now, when I went away 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.400 from Nashville to Washington, d C. To go to college, 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.400 it was a big culture shock for me. And I 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:42.920 feel like kids are more as as you know, the 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.680 ages have have grown, They're more technologically astute, they're more 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.280 aware of maybe what what different parts of the country 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.280 are like. But that had to be wild for you 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.120 to go from upstate New York to Texas, right well, 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.280 First of all, I remember I was catching in baseball 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.200 and it's like a hundred and two degrees putting on 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.120 you know, chest protector, shin guards and a mask to 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.800 sweat in and like, so that was a shock. I 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.120 can vividly remember the first time I played in a 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.760 fall baseball game, because you used to play fall games, 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.640 and just like we're playing in a hundred and two 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.120 degree heat and you have on the tools of ignorance 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.520 as they're known, and just sweating profusely and yeah, you know, 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:23.720 culture shak. I was trying to figure out, you know, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.200 how to survive in in college and trigonometry and Eldra 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.880 and then calculus, so that was really my focus. But 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.880 I vividly remember kind of being wide eyed that I 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.400 was in Texas. But also, you know, there are a 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.360 lot of Baptist churches around, and there as many Catholic churches. 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:40.800 And in New York there are a lot of Catholic 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.920 churches and as many Baptist churches. So those are like 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.959 the quick impressions. You said your dad was a welder. 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:51.319 Did you guys travel very much when you were growing up. Yeah, 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:56.320 that's a really insightful question. Um, given that that that work. Um, no, 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.920 we were really fortunate. So my dad's dad did, you know, 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.480 travel around from job to job across the country and 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.000 and he didn't settle down until he was in high 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.880 school with my dad, uh in the in the mid 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:14.280 fifties and then late fifties actually, and then most of 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.280 his life was in that central New York area. There 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.360 was enough work with power plants, some nuclear power plants, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.640 gas fired coal fired power plants, along with gas lines 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.719 and building that, um, we didn't have to have kind 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.920 of the camper life that that some others did. In fact, 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.240 he spent six months in the late sixties working in 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.440 Korea on pipelines and we had a family film of 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.640 you know, they literally took steel pipe twenty four in 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.240 steel pipe and put it on the backs of you 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:50.680 know workers, the Korean people who would carry it and 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.560 put it in the ditch where we had side booms 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.400 and bulldozers and backhoes to do that work. Um, and 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.000 they're like livestock moving pipe and equip in those those 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.000 films in the late sixties. Um, So that was really 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.720 the only time that he spent time away. It was 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.040 it was a good thing for us that, um, you know, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.680 we had a stable life and they still live in 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.880 in upstate New York and has worked in the same 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:22.000 UH United Association Plumbers and Pipe Fitters local union for 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.760 you know, fifty plus years. You didn't know it then, 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:27.160 but do you think having a blue collar background in 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.760 terms of what your dad did has helped you to 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.480 connect a little bit better with a lot of athletes 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.520 who certainly are coming into the Southeastern Conference now who 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.760 aren't all coming from you know, white collar backgrounds, right, 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.000 I mean the people are coming in. Well, I think 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.320 there's a couple of things as far as and it 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.640 particularly relates to the theme of the podcast, you know, 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.839 kind of what got you here? So two summers when 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.920 I was in college, actually worked on the construction projects 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.400 at nuclear plants, which sounds kind of like Homer Simpson, Mr. 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:02.000 Burn right, But literally, UM spent those summers. You made 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.040 great money. It was a lug and tug crew. You're 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.400 picking things up and getting it ready to prepare. You 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.960 obviously weren't doing anything that it had a long term 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.920 functional or safety issue involved. But you know, it was 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:17.600 ten hour days, so I had to drive an hour 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.000 to work in a place called Oswego, New York, and 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:21.880 it was an hour up. You had to be in 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.680 place at seven am, and you worked until five thirty, 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.959 and you work in six days a week, and uh, 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:30.760 you know, you had time and a half and and 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.760 double time over like fifty hours. So when you're n 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:36.360 years old, that's great. But I saw that life. You 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.320 asked me about where people kind of boomers boom from 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.760 job to job, and they had a travel trailer and 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.120 they might have a family. And one of the great 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.280 lines that was shared to me by one of my 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.280 co workers is, you don't know what pressure is like 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.200 until you've got your wife and your kids in the 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:54.920 car and you have to pass a welding test in 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.160 order to get a paycheck the next week. And people 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.640 ask me about pressure, and there's pressure in this job. 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.880 There's visibility that's not present for a welder. I also 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.000 learned a really important lesson. Like the first year I've 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.440 been up there, two months, I woke up, I was sicker, 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.640 in one of those summer colds, just sore throw I said, 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:14.520 I'm not not going to be able to go in today. 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.839 My dad was working a different job. He was up early, 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:18.280 and he looked at me and said, that's okay, just 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.840 calm telling you won't be in UH today or the 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:22.880 rest of the summer. That that can't make it the 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.320 day that I went back and put on my work clothes, 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.040 bought a box of tissues and a gallant orange juice, 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:30.480 and I made it through the day, and you learn 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.560 a little bit about a work ethic and those circumstances. 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.000 So you said that you came out thinking you were 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.000 going to coach, and we're talking to SEC Commissioner Greg 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.680 Sanky here on the Winds and Losses podcast. You said 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.480 you came out thinking you were going to coach basketball, baseball, 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.880 whatever it was. Did you have a target of what 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.120 you thought you were going to do. Yeah, I thought 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.160 i'd end up UM coaching basketball is my my my 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.320 focused at the high school level. First, My my field 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.120 of vision for that point in my life was if 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.360 he drew a three hour circle around Syracuse, New York, 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.920 probably not much more north, but over to Aubany, Buffalo, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.040 down towards Binghamton, the Pennsylvania boarder. I figured I'd teach 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:17.280 in some school there, initially UM and then coach, and 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.520 my dream of dreams I used to think about. In fact, 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:22.880 my senior year in college, I was an assistant varsity 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.800 coach for a large school in boys basketball, and they 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.400 talked about talked about going to the Final four and 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:31.920 you know, sleeping six to a room. So like I 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:33.920 was like, man, someday I could get to go to 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.480 the Final four, and uh, maybe I could be like 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.480 a Division three coach. In fact, John bee Line, who 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.240 just took the Cleveland Cavaliers job, was coaching at a 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.480 Division to college in Syracuseton. I'd go watch his games 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.400 back in the mid eighties, had a friend who was 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:55.280 an assistant coach on his staff. Um and his career 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.000 is probably one that would have been the template for me, 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.200 because he went high school to junior college, to smaller 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:05.480 college and then uplod chain of Division one. But I 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.440 could see my initial job, which never materialized by the way, 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.920 I ended up right out of college going to work 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:16.680 at a college setting, which recast the direction of my 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.400 career and literally my life. So what happens then you 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.000 graduate your thinking you might try and be a high 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.520 school basketball coach, that's an ambition in your life, and instead, 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.600 like a lot of people out there, you graduate from 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.280 college and maybe you find a job doing something different 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.560 than you had anticipated. What was that job. Yeah, I was. 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:39.240 I became the director of intramural sports at Utica College 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.960 in Utica, New York. And if you're old enough to 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.000 remember the light beer commercials ken Brett what one time 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.480 was in the less Filling Taste great commercial and ends 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:54.440 with Utica Utica George's brother. So there's a minor league 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.360 team and he had been traded enough. But UH literally 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.480 applied through a newspaper for classified ad. That's that was 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.800 my source. It wasn't like I didn't know anybody. I 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.280 just sent a letter and a resume in to a 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:09.840 classified ad right out of college. And I was sending, 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.400 as you can imagine, resumes all over UH to to 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.600 grab a job. And I was invited to interview. And 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:22.360 I had actually two job offers. One was coaching women's 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.360 basketball at the junior college and teaching, and then this 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.200 intermural job. And I took the intermural job because I 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.640 was able to attend Syracuse University on remitted tuitions. I 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.200 worked full time and then every Wednesday I drive a 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.320 little over an hour to Syracuse go to two classes, 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.600 you know, to like three hour classes and one day 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.520 and UH took two years and did the bulk of 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.520 my master's work that way, and UM one of the 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.880 really key decisions. I took the job, and I was 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:56.040 gonna wait a year to uh to start my graduate program. 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.280 I've been in college. I had taken five years to 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.400 finish four year program because of my transfers and trying 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.720 to figure it out. And UH, I said to my boss, 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:07.240 he said, one day, were an' you going to start 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.120 your graduate program? I said, well, I'm gonna wait a year. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.320 And he gave me the best advice of my career, 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.760 which was he said, if you don't start now, you 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.080 never will. So I went ahead and enrolled and started, 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.920 and that just started a sequence of events from a 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.720 timing standpoint that were critically important to the opportunities that 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.760 have unfolded for me. How much did you get paid? 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.280 Do you remember at that first job, supervisor? Fifteen grand 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.280 a year before taxes and uh. That was a time 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.600 period where remitted tuition had generally not been taxed. But 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.080 I was fortunate for by two years of remitted tuition 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.680 at a private university for a master's agree to also 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:48.240 be taxed on that tuition benefits. So I would work 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.000 weekends on the facility to supervise because I paid a 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.040 little bit extra, like an hourly wage whatever it was 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.240 five bucks an hour, just you know, trying to make 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.040 it work. So what did you do is intermural supervisor? 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.840 Did you actually ref games? Did you put together like 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.720 the sports? I mean that what exactly was your day 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:08.639 to day when you were doing that job. Yeah. I 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:10.919 showed up at like ten in the morning, and I 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.320 had to teach some some classes, but I'd be there 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.040 till ten or eleven at night every every day of 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.400 the week, and then depending on sports season, maybe till midnight. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.560 I put together the whole program, so you'd play flag 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.960 football and volleyball, and and I just it was a 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.880 creative opportunity had someone but they basically said, okay, here 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.080 it is. And I had never planned on doing this work, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.680 but had had played intermurals in college, and and whether 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.160 I was playing intermurals or running this program, I learned 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.240 a key lesson which helps me today, which is, when 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.200 you're like nineteen and twenty years old, you will tear 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.720 your friends arms off to win an intermural championship, which 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:54.200 is very to college students. It is a universal truth 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.199 which which you know we face ethical challenges in the 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.919 way fifty and sixty year old coaches conduct themselves, and 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.520 it shouldn't surprise us. That's that that's the case if 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.320 when they're nineteen and twenty, they're gonna do whatever. So 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.159 you know, that was officiating. I learned a lot. I 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.160 had the schedule sports and schedule the gym. I oversaw 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.840 a facility with a pool and racquetball courts and weight 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.199 rooms and kind of made it all work. I was 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.080 the the very low person on the totem pole who 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:24.080 was like, okay, you run the facility. You make sure 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.359 it's open on weekends, that we've got lifeguards, and you know, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.040 things are set up for games. And I was a 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.200 p a announcer for Division three basketball for a couple 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.920 of years as well. I'm just kind of whatever opportunity 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.680 was there. I took the mindset that that I'd say 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.200 yes because it would provide a learning opportunity. So are 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:45.080 you a single guy at this point running as a 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.639 rector of intermurals. So how long? How long did you 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.560 keep that job? Two years in fact, so this was 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.320 graduate from college in seven and graduated in May and 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:59.440 started that job August one. Um I was a lifeguard 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.120 on a UH at the sailing club on a lake, 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:06.080 which sounds more prestigious than it was. But I, you know, 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.119 had enough money to put gas in the tank and 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.440 put a deposit down on an apartment. Started in August 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:17.160 and then my wife now then I were dating and 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.600 uh November of eight, which clearly shows I didn't have 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.280 a vision for being the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.480 Because our wedding anniversary falls on the Alabama l s 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.600 U weekend every year. So if I'd gone back to then, 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.520 like if we could go back in time to suit 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:37.440 us we Go, I think, right is the school. Yeah, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.240 working at us we Go, though, I show up at 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.000 inter Murals and I walk into your office and inter 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.720 Murals one morning and I said, Hey, I think you 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.320 got a shot to one day be the commissioner of 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:53.679 a conference. Your response would have been what um? Seriously, 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.080 because that was not even on the radar screen. I 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.120 will say a couple of things that I did then 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:05.360 that were really um, there was some foresight there by happenstance. 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.200 One is I bought an n C A rule manual 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.560 because I was in grad school. I was in like 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.560 it was really higher education master's degree, but they called 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.959 an athletic administration or something like that, and so I 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.240 started I read, like from cover to cover the n 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:25.399 say A rule book, so I became familiar with that 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.679 regular regulatory structure. I also worked at a place that 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.359 was moving from Division one back to Division three. So 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.280 a guy named Larry Costello. I came to know. Larry 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.040 had played in the NBA coach the Milwaukee Bucks when 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.960 Kareem played and they won an NBA championship in the 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.000 early seventies. I mean, this is he's a Hall of Famer, 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.800 just a phenomenal person. And so I got to be 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:53.240 around people who had been in college sports or in 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.720 professional sports at a higher level. So you know, I 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.840 read this manual, I learned and got to be around 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.080 people have had some sophistication and sport and then, um, 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.880 I mean the master's program kind of devouring every piece 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.280 of information about intercollegiate athletics that I could. So there 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.480 was this kind of a flicker of a flame where 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.600 I wouldn't have said you're crazy. I would have said, seriously, 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:20.320 if you had come in and made that type of 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.680 prediction that how many people do you think at that 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.160 time had even read the n C double a manual, 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.399 not many because it was really awkwardly written at the right. 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.960 So this was right around you know, SMU death penalty time. Um, 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:37.600 you know, len Bias at Maryland had passed away, which 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:42.680 which resulted in a thorough review of circumstances there. Uh, 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:44.879 you can go back and find this whole pay for 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:52.280 play debate and some of my my master's observations, master's documents, papers, 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.720 whatever you may call them. Just the comparison. I was 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.639 kind of a ravenous consumer of information at that time, 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:04.520 and it was the printed materials, sports illustrated, Sporting News, 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:08.960 Sport magazine had a lot of long form, in depth reporting, 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:12.560 which again is an illustration thirty years later. That's really 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.520 those publications either don't exist or have certainly changed. But 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.320 I took all that in as part of the educational process. Now, 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.280 were you a good student when you were in high 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:25.920 school and you were in college or was it that 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:29.439 you found this particular area of interest and it just 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.000 captivated you in some way? I mean, how would you 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.840 assess your academic background? Yeah, I when I walked into college, 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.439 I don't I was a good, good student, not great, 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.639 wasn't in a like a great high school situation to 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.159 prepare me. Um So, I walked into engineering school and 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:47.280 I looked back and I was no more prepared to 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.240 start studying engineering successfully as an eighteen year old than 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.199 I would have been to uh fly an airplane at 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:56.840 that point. Um So, I had to learn how to learn. 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:58.560 One of the best things that happened to me as 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.560 I ended up in a five credit our calculum calculus 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.560 one class I sawphomore year, and I meant every day 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.360 you had an hour long class and calculus with homework, 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.600 and if you ever got behind, you were done. And 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:14.600 the clay had taught me to learn how to learn. 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:17.760 So of anything that happened my first couple of years 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:22.000 of college, the process of learning to learn was critically important. 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:25.119 And then I decided how I want to pursue something 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:29.560 that I'm passionate about the sports, uh the sports area, 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:34.000 but working with people and teaching kind of resonated, and 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:39.760 so I became really successful from an academic standpoint, challenged 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:44.119 myself a little bit more with with different classes from 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.080 an elective standpoint, and then when I started my master's program, 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.680 I remember vividly my first class. There's about a dozen 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:53.600 people and we're studying the foundations of American higher education, 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:57.800 which I knew nothing about. Ironically, I work in American 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:01.760 higher education, so it was long term of beneficial experience. 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:05.639 But we we'd have like an hour discussion lecture and 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:08.560 then we break into small groups. And the first time 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:11.440 I'm there, I realized everybody is in their doctoral program 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.320 in this group, and I just starting a master's. So 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:16.639 they've got some problem that I don't recall. And they 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:18.679 go around the table and there's like six of us 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:20.359 in this group, and they get to me and said, well, 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:22.560 what do you think? And I was very honest. They said, look, 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:26.800 I'm just starting my master's. I can't contribute anything to 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:29.840 this discussion right now, but I promise you as we 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:31.760 moved towards the end of the semester, I will figure 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:35.280 this out and be fully engaged. And I offered that 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:38.200 story just as a representation of the growth that happened 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:42.920 from an educational academic standpoint along my journey. So by 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:45.280 the end of the class, I was doing just that. 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:47.320 And one of the people who sat at that table said, 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:50.000 that's one of the most remarkable things that I that 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:53.199 she had seen. She wasn't finishing her doctoral program, that 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:56.240 you'd have the confidence, And I'm like, that wasn't confidence. 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.359 I was scared to death to just admit what you 0:24:59.400 --> 0:25:02.359 didn't know, but promised that you'd catch up. And you 0:25:02.480 --> 0:25:06.040 did what you said. So you get your masters at 0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:10.520 Syracuse and what happens next? Yeah, so I finished that program. 0:25:10.520 --> 0:25:12.840 My wife and I were married in November of eight seven. 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:15.359 Fast forward the spring of eighty eight. We had a 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:17.720 conversation about what's next in her life. She was a 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:22.280 registered nurse. Um. You know, it was early married life 0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:26.080 when you don't know really much about anything. I guess 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:30.280 and looking back and with this conversation resulted in my 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:32.560 observation that I always wondered if I could work in 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:36.200 Division one college sports. And so I just started sending 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:38.560 resumes out and I ended up with a with a 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:43.160 response from a place called Northwestern State University in Nacadush, Louisiana, 0:25:43.680 --> 0:25:47.680 and I had written to remember Michigan, Arizona State, Syracuse. 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:51.080 I talked to in Syracuse for a brief period of time, 0:25:51.080 --> 0:25:54.320 but I ended up buying my own plane ticket to Shreveport. 0:25:54.440 --> 0:25:57.520 They picked me up, drove me an hour south to Nakadish, 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:00.800 and it was at a time when you could find 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:03.359 a little bit about Northwestern State. They were one double 0:26:03.400 --> 0:26:05.719 A and football Gary Reasons, who played for the New 0:26:05.800 --> 0:26:10.280 York Giants, had attended their Mark Duper. The receiver for 0:26:10.359 --> 0:26:13.880 the Miami Dolphins. John Stevens was rookie of the Year 0:26:13.880 --> 0:26:16.080 in the n f C running back for the Patriots. 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:18.840 So Bobby A. Barrett played there. So there was enough 0:26:19.240 --> 0:26:22.480 substance that you're like, okay, I go down there, met 0:26:22.520 --> 0:26:26.560 the A D and and uh, you know, just it 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:29.359 doesn't seem like it made a lot of sense now, 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:32.240 but then it's like, hey, here's our adventure. So we 0:26:32.320 --> 0:26:37.160 packed up everything in the summer of eight nine and 0:26:37.440 --> 0:26:41.240 uh drove a budget rent a truck pulling a seven 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:44.679 Dodge Shadow on a two wheel dolly from Utica, New 0:26:44.760 --> 0:26:48.960 York to Nakadish, Louisiana. And we didn't have air conditioning 0:26:48.960 --> 0:26:51.800 in our car. It was like hot and humid, like 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:56.160 I'd never really experienced, even the Texas Texas time. And 0:26:56.560 --> 0:27:01.280 like the plan was, um, I made five dollars a 0:27:01.320 --> 0:27:04.200 month in the internship, so I've gone from like eighteen 0:27:04.240 --> 0:27:07.040 thousand because I've been provided a raise down to six. 0:27:07.760 --> 0:27:10.480 I was married. I knew we had enough money to 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:13.919 make it into December if Cathy and my wife didn't 0:27:14.000 --> 0:27:17.520 didn't get a job. She ended up pretty quickly becoming 0:27:17.560 --> 0:27:22.000 a nurse in the Nakotis Paris hospital. She worked third shifts, 0:27:22.040 --> 0:27:24.200 so like I'd go to work in the morning, I'd 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:26.600 come home, we'd eat dinner together. She'd go to work, 0:27:27.080 --> 0:27:29.200 she'd come home, we got breakfast. She tell me all 0:27:29.200 --> 0:27:33.080 the overnight hospital stories, of which there were many adventures 0:27:33.720 --> 0:27:37.200 um during that time, and that that was kind of life, 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:41.959 you know, there was you know, it was just she worked, 0:27:41.960 --> 0:27:44.399 I worked, and uh, you know, we didn't know a 0:27:44.480 --> 0:27:47.880 soul in that Louisiana. Probably really good for our marriage 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:50.879 because we had to get along otherwise it was going 0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:54.120 to go really bad. I did that for a year. 0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:56.800 I became the golf coach. They needed a golf coach. 0:27:56.880 --> 0:28:00.520 I'm like, okay, I'll coach the golf team. No I was. 0:28:00.640 --> 0:28:02.439 I was average at a nice set of ping Eye, 0:28:02.520 --> 0:28:05.119 two clubs that were in vogue then, and the A. D. 0:28:05.200 --> 0:28:08.000 Saudi fired the coach. I walked into his office. He said, 0:28:08.400 --> 0:28:10.439 I need a golf coach. Remember, I said, like the 0:28:10.480 --> 0:28:13.359 p A a ouncer. I'd never say no, and so 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:16.119 I took over as a goal I didn't know this. 0:28:16.200 --> 0:28:19.000 You took over as a golf coach at South Yeah 0:28:19.240 --> 0:28:21.960 nor Northwestern? Say, we didn't have a schedule, So I 0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:25.080 put us together schedule. We didn't have uniforms. I should 0:28:25.240 --> 0:28:27.879 like personally apologize to each of the players because they 0:28:27.920 --> 0:28:32.199 were gray Sam's a belt slacks for their golf uniforms 0:28:32.200 --> 0:28:35.960 that year. There's like college kids. That seems so wrong 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:40.239 at this point. A lot of polyester involved, um, and 0:28:40.280 --> 0:28:43.520 then that we weren't. Some of the players probably better 0:28:43.560 --> 0:28:46.400 at golf than you, oh by far, every one of them. 0:28:46.440 --> 0:28:49.280 So how did you coach? How did you coach golf? Um? 0:28:49.400 --> 0:28:52.000 I made a lot of phone calls and I stayed 0:28:52.040 --> 0:28:54.440 out of their way. I got into tea times on time, 0:28:54.840 --> 0:28:57.720 and I really started asking them questions. I made sure 0:28:57.760 --> 0:28:59.640 that they were in a little bit of decent shape. 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:03.560 I figured that that I couldn't help them on the course, 0:29:03.840 --> 0:29:05.880 but I could help them mentally in advance. So you 0:29:05.920 --> 0:29:08.560 played a lot of thirty six eighteen rounds and I 0:29:08.560 --> 0:29:10.840 started having and run the stadium ramps and they're like, 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:12.440 why are we doing this? And I said, because you 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:13.920 need to be in a little bit of shape. And 0:29:13.960 --> 0:29:17.600 then I remember vividly, like after we'd done this a 0:29:17.600 --> 0:29:19.720 few times and they think I'm crazy. We played one 0:29:19.720 --> 0:29:22.040 of these thirty six whole days and they're like, oh yeah, 0:29:22.200 --> 0:29:24.560 and these guys have finished last in the conference every year, 0:29:24.600 --> 0:29:28.240 by the way. We so we had this this thirty 0:29:28.280 --> 0:29:30.239 six whole day and when they finished, we're going out 0:29:30.360 --> 0:29:31.960 to dinner, and I said, I could tell I was 0:29:32.000 --> 0:29:34.200 a lot more prepared for this than than the guys 0:29:34.200 --> 0:29:36.160 I was playing. But they were all dragging at the end, 0:29:36.200 --> 0:29:38.920 and it was like a recognition of just the mental aspect. 0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:42.160 And then you ask questions and you know they all 0:29:42.280 --> 0:29:46.520 were going to have teachers and instructors anyway, even you know, 0:29:46.600 --> 0:29:50.840 thirty years ago, um and the guy before me got 0:29:50.840 --> 0:29:53.240 in a couple of fights apparently on the course of colleagues. 0:29:53.360 --> 0:29:55.160 So the fact I never got in the fight won't 0:29:55.200 --> 0:29:58.360 be be like a Coach of the Year awards. So 0:29:58.360 --> 0:30:00.680 so what was the rays to go for m intern 0:30:00.880 --> 0:30:04.160 there to what were you getting paid as the golf coach? 0:30:05.040 --> 0:30:07.600 Nothing that was a big Yeah. I had a nine 0:30:07.600 --> 0:30:10.120 thousand dollar budget and I went out and raised like 0:30:10.280 --> 0:30:13.880 another fifteen or twenty through a golf tournament. I wrote 0:30:13.920 --> 0:30:16.400 every p g A and lp A g A professional 0:30:16.520 --> 0:30:20.160 asking them for stuff for uh, you know, a silent 0:30:20.200 --> 0:30:23.800 auction and the golf tournament. A lot of them. Like 0:30:24.240 --> 0:30:26.520 one time that Peter Jacobson on an airline. I said, 0:30:26.560 --> 0:30:28.640 you don't know this, but you helped me like make 0:30:28.720 --> 0:30:31.120 my budget. Hail Irwin was awesome. He had won the 0:30:31.200 --> 0:30:35.160 US Open and sent me autograph passes. I actually had 0:30:35.200 --> 0:30:38.120 somebody bid for me. I have a Jack Nicholas Sports 0:30:38.120 --> 0:30:41.960 Illustrated cover when he won his last Masters, the autographed 0:30:41.960 --> 0:30:43.840 and so I didn't want people think I was doing 0:30:43.880 --> 0:30:46.120 anything wrong. So I had somebody bid for me to 0:30:46.200 --> 0:30:50.160 bid it up. Um just that's you know. He had 0:30:50.240 --> 0:30:53.680 nine thousand dollars was my budget. And you know you 0:30:53.760 --> 0:30:56.560 had to play a certain number of days and I 0:30:56.600 --> 0:30:59.720 forget the numbers, but we could play like half of 0:30:59.800 --> 0:31:01.760 what we needed to do. We had an old gray 0:31:01.880 --> 0:31:05.040 Ford van where if you pulled the the floor up, 0:31:05.440 --> 0:31:09.440 like the vinyl flooring, you'd see the road. Um it 0:31:09.520 --> 0:31:13.520 was there was an adventure in you know. He went 0:31:13.520 --> 0:31:15.480 out and recruited a little bit, and so I added 0:31:15.520 --> 0:31:17.880 some players over a couple of years. I got paid 0:31:17.920 --> 0:31:21.360 nothing for that. You're asking about salaries. So when I 0:31:21.360 --> 0:31:24.000 I was hired as director of compliance that next summer 0:31:24.080 --> 0:31:28.120 full time because they went through a pretty significant infractions 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:30.120 case with the n c A. In fact, that's most 0:31:30.160 --> 0:31:32.440 allegations in the case I've ever seen. I've been on 0:31:32.480 --> 0:31:35.120 the Committee of Infractions for nine years. What were they 0:31:35.200 --> 0:31:38.320 cheating doing there? Men's basketball? Yeah, So they had a 0:31:38.360 --> 0:31:42.560 coach that had been an assistant actually at the SEC school. 0:31:42.640 --> 0:31:45.719 He came back to his alma mater and there was 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:48.920 like a ten thousand dollar check that was offered and 0:31:48.960 --> 0:31:51.400 the defense was it was kind of a joke and 0:31:51.440 --> 0:31:53.920 it was a two or three year investigation. And so 0:31:54.000 --> 0:31:56.960 I'm there, I'm an intern. I decided I was going 0:31:57.000 --> 0:32:00.719 to stay because I was learning a lot. I've always 0:32:00.760 --> 0:32:02.720 decided to kind of put money in the background as 0:32:02.760 --> 0:32:06.800 long as we could survive and kind of grow my career. 0:32:06.840 --> 0:32:09.120 But I was there and they said, hey, we got 0:32:09.160 --> 0:32:12.120 this position, would you be interested? And I I didn't 0:32:12.120 --> 0:32:14.040 know a lot about it, but I like read the 0:32:14.160 --> 0:32:16.080 n c A manual as you were called, and it 0:32:16.200 --> 0:32:18.880 paid attention to the n c A newspaper that came 0:32:18.920 --> 0:32:21.600 out every week, so I knew, I knew what was 0:32:21.640 --> 0:32:25.680 going on. I get hired on like a Friday, And 0:32:25.680 --> 0:32:27.960 on Wednesday when an airplane to a committee on in 0:32:28.040 --> 0:32:31.720 fractions hearing at Colorado Springs and we're at dinner and 0:32:31.760 --> 0:32:35.160 the vice president university. We're just talking and and it's 0:32:35.240 --> 0:32:37.360 like I didn't need any job description because that night 0:32:37.440 --> 0:32:39.520 he looks at me and says, well, we know if 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:41.960 we're ever here again as a university, thank you won't 0:32:41.960 --> 0:32:49.560 be with us. So that was one of those motivational talks. So, uh, 0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:51.640 I want to ask this dude, where did you meet 0:32:51.680 --> 0:32:53.880 your wife? Because you you bring her immediately down to 0:32:53.880 --> 0:32:56.440 the middle of nowhere, Louisiana to work as a nurse 0:32:56.920 --> 0:32:58.920 um and uh, and she's got to be thinking, what 0:32:58.960 --> 0:33:00.880 in the world you know by doing here? Where did 0:33:00.880 --> 0:33:03.760 you guys meet? Yes, she's from my same hometown. So 0:33:03.840 --> 0:33:07.800 we are a little town called Skinny Atlas, New York, um, 0:33:07.880 --> 0:33:10.520 which is a school district we lived in and she 0:33:10.600 --> 0:33:12.959 moved there in junior high and that's where I was 0:33:13.000 --> 0:33:16.520 born and raised in that area. So we knew of Yeah, 0:33:16.560 --> 0:33:19.920 we knew of each other. We first dated right when 0:33:19.960 --> 0:33:23.000 she graduated from high school. I've been through my freshman 0:33:23.080 --> 0:33:25.920 year in college and then it was a five year 0:33:25.960 --> 0:33:31.120 experience before we were married. And uh, all right, so 0:33:31.160 --> 0:33:34.560 how long did you coach the golf team? Three years? 0:33:34.760 --> 0:33:38.000 How much did they get better? Yeah, we finished like 0:33:38.360 --> 0:33:42.160 my first year, we weren't last, which was an accomplishment 0:33:42.160 --> 0:33:44.720 because they've always been last. And we went into the 0:33:44.800 --> 0:33:47.760 final day. It was a twosomes that we played, and 0:33:47.760 --> 0:33:50.160 we were playing South of Austin. And so I had 0:33:50.200 --> 0:33:53.719 one guy who his nickname was Taco. I mean, this 0:33:53.840 --> 0:33:58.080 is like there's a movie in here, right, So Taco says, 0:33:58.120 --> 0:33:59.920 let me go first. He says, I'm gonna play so 0:34:00.200 --> 0:34:01.920 fast that guy won't be able to keep up with me, 0:34:02.000 --> 0:34:05.600 will throw offs off his rhythm, and sure enough, like 0:34:05.720 --> 0:34:08.239 he gets up there, he says on the tea box, 0:34:08.239 --> 0:34:10.479 he says, hey, I'm gonna play fast. He he hits 0:34:10.480 --> 0:34:13.520 his ball across his big canyon that was off the 0:34:13.600 --> 0:34:16.399 tee to the green, and the next the part four 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:19.520 but to the fairway across the kind of the chasm, 0:34:19.560 --> 0:34:21.240 and the next thing that gets up and just dunks 0:34:21.280 --> 0:34:24.120 it right in the canyon. Then like the whole teams like, hey, 0:34:24.160 --> 0:34:26.680 I think we might not finish last. This year, maybe 0:34:26.680 --> 0:34:29.319 we can get two ninths out of ten, and then 0:34:29.360 --> 0:34:32.520 we got to uh, I think we got to like seventh, 0:34:32.560 --> 0:34:36.719 and then we finished fifth and uh. You know, there 0:34:36.719 --> 0:34:40.360 had no money and no real practice facility, and we 0:34:40.440 --> 0:34:43.360 never won a tournament. We always we finished second like 0:34:43.440 --> 0:34:45.879 four times. So after my first year, I figured out 0:34:46.120 --> 0:34:49.399 it's all about scheduling. So you wanted a few tough 0:34:49.600 --> 0:34:52.000 tournaments so they could play up. But then I was 0:34:52.000 --> 0:34:54.280 always trying to find one or two where we could 0:34:54.320 --> 0:34:57.920 win and compete just to build some confidence. And we 0:34:58.040 --> 0:35:00.879 finished second like three times. But but I never had 0:35:01.320 --> 0:35:04.279 never had a victory. So what happens. Then you're there 0:35:04.320 --> 0:35:06.920 for three years, you're coaching golf, you're doing n C 0:35:07.080 --> 0:35:11.239 double a work um and and what's the next step. Yeah, 0:35:11.239 --> 0:35:15.480 so there's a guy Brittain Banowski Britain was assistant commissioner 0:35:15.520 --> 0:35:17.560 in the South Wind. He came in the same month 0:35:17.600 --> 0:35:21.200 I started as an intern at Northwestern State. Britain eventually 0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:23.759 became Conference USA and had just left a couple of 0:35:23.800 --> 0:35:26.600 years ago and now runs a college football playoff foundation. 0:35:27.120 --> 0:35:29.120 But we got to know each other in and in 0:35:29.239 --> 0:35:33.440 the fall of ninety one, he took a job as 0:35:33.840 --> 0:35:36.600 assistant commissioner with the Southwest Conference, you know, the old 0:35:36.640 --> 0:35:41.200 Texas Arkansas Conference, and uh so there was this opening 0:35:41.239 --> 0:35:45.600 and I applied and and was selected for that job. 0:35:45.680 --> 0:35:47.960 I did not have a law degree. I interviewed against 0:35:47.960 --> 0:35:50.959 two attorneys, and in the interview process they said, look, 0:35:51.000 --> 0:35:53.480 we think we need an attorney for this job. Why 0:35:53.520 --> 0:35:56.800 should we even consider you? Again? The other two candidates 0:35:56.800 --> 0:36:00.719 had law degrees, And I remember my answer star did with, Look, 0:36:01.400 --> 0:36:04.080 you're gonna have to make your own decision. You're right, 0:36:04.080 --> 0:36:05.560 I don't have a lot of green. If I can 0:36:05.560 --> 0:36:08.000 convince you don't need an attorney, I think I've got 0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:10.799 a really good chance of being your next assistant commissioner. 0:36:11.400 --> 0:36:15.040 Which was kind of just an off the coff confident statement, 0:36:15.640 --> 0:36:18.480 not arrogant, but just confident that let me explain to you, 0:36:18.640 --> 0:36:22.240 I think I'm the person for this job. So January 0:36:22.239 --> 0:36:25.279 of ninety two, we moved from Nackadis, Louisiana, to the 0:36:25.360 --> 0:36:30.239 Dallas area. Lived in planoh actually in Allen, Texas, UM 0:36:30.280 --> 0:36:33.200 and I started as assistant commissioner for the Southland Conference 0:36:33.280 --> 0:36:36.960 that that January and then Clay, like every two years, 0:36:36.960 --> 0:36:39.480 I moved up. So two years later I became associate 0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:44.000 commissioner for Championships and Marketing Brittain Mianowski Britain had come 0:36:44.040 --> 0:36:47.479 back as our commissioner um. And then two years later, 0:36:47.680 --> 0:36:50.400 when the Big Twelve is being started, Steve Hatchell was 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:56.960 it's uh, it's inaugural commissioner. He hired Britain and I 0:36:57.040 --> 0:36:59.600 was thirty one years old, and they named me commissioner. 0:36:59.719 --> 0:37:03.320 All the presidents got together and they decided unanimously to 0:37:03.440 --> 0:37:05.960 named met commissioner of that conference without going out and 0:37:06.000 --> 0:37:09.480 doing a further search. They thought they thought they had 0:37:09.520 --> 0:37:12.920 the right person. And uh hopefully they still feel they 0:37:12.960 --> 0:37:15.439 did the right thing at that point. So you're thirty one, 0:37:15.680 --> 0:37:18.879 and that's a pretty meteoric rise, right to go from 0:37:18.920 --> 0:37:21.680 and in turn in the middle of nowhere or Louisiana 0:37:21.719 --> 0:37:24.279 and then a golf coach, and at thirty one you 0:37:24.320 --> 0:37:28.640 get named the commissioner of that conference. Were you ready 0:37:28.680 --> 0:37:32.800 for the job? I don't think you've ever ready, believe 0:37:32.880 --> 0:37:37.239 me in my current role, um, but I was. I 0:37:37.280 --> 0:37:40.000 was as prepared as you could be at thirty one 0:37:40.080 --> 0:37:42.319 years old, which is you know, that's not a very 0:37:42.360 --> 0:37:46.360 sophisticated answer. You play. What's interesting is two years earlier 0:37:46.480 --> 0:37:49.200 the job had come open and people said you should apply, 0:37:49.280 --> 0:37:51.680 and I knew inside that I wasn't ready. It wasn't 0:37:51.719 --> 0:37:55.520 my time. I actually thought, right or wrong, naively soul 0:37:55.680 --> 0:37:58.920 or just youth that when it came open again, I 0:37:58.960 --> 0:38:02.239 thought I had a shot at um at being the commissioner. 0:38:02.320 --> 0:38:05.799 I've been around the League office for four years, you know, 0:38:05.840 --> 0:38:08.600 I've done the regulatory stuff. I kind of knew the issues. 0:38:08.760 --> 0:38:11.160 I had the ability to think through what needed to 0:38:11.239 --> 0:38:15.200 be done or what shouldn't have been done, And um, yeah, 0:38:15.400 --> 0:38:17.560 I was as ready as could be. You know, it 0:38:17.719 --> 0:38:21.120 was a time where like all the staff took other jobs. 0:38:21.120 --> 0:38:23.919 I mean I worked like tirelessly because it's a much 0:38:24.600 --> 0:38:27.920 smaller operation. But you still, I had high expectations of 0:38:27.960 --> 0:38:31.080 myself even in that moment. So for people who aren't 0:38:31.080 --> 0:38:33.600 familiar with that conference at that time, the schools that 0:38:33.640 --> 0:38:36.560 are in it are which ones? And uh and what 0:38:36.719 --> 0:38:39.160 you know? How much of it arranged geographically? Did you 0:38:39.200 --> 0:38:42.000 have to deal with? Sure? It was all all the Texas. 0:38:42.080 --> 0:38:44.440 All the schools at that time were either in Texas 0:38:44.480 --> 0:38:48.600 or Louisiana sou from Dallas down to San Antonio and 0:38:48.640 --> 0:38:53.360 then east through Louisiana, and we had ten when I started. 0:38:53.360 --> 0:38:57.400 One was withdrawing, so the University of North Texas withdrew 0:38:57.800 --> 0:39:00.000 at the end of that academic year. So we were 0:39:00.000 --> 0:39:03.040 own to nine and that was kind of directional schools 0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:07.360 in Louisiana plus McNee State, Nichols State, and then Stephen F. 0:39:07.440 --> 0:39:11.560 Austin sam Houston State, Southwest Texas which is now Texas State, 0:39:11.680 --> 0:39:14.960 Texas Arlington in Texas, San Antonio. So I'm thirty one 0:39:15.040 --> 0:39:17.839 years old, I've got to hire a new staff, and 0:39:17.880 --> 0:39:21.520 I have expansion put right on my my desk from 0:39:21.600 --> 0:39:26.319 day one. And uh, we added that summer. Lamar University 0:39:26.520 --> 0:39:30.040 in southeastern Louisiana went to eleven and said that's the 0:39:30.160 --> 0:39:33.719 right number. So, um, you know, we had three other 0:39:33.800 --> 0:39:37.440 universities or colleges considered, and it was one of those 0:39:37.640 --> 0:39:40.839 really good decisions for that league, but nobody stopped at 0:39:40.840 --> 0:39:45.160 eleven members. Um. But you know, to your question about 0:39:45.160 --> 0:39:48.400 where you're ready, I kind of understood the league and 0:39:48.560 --> 0:39:52.279 what would work and what wouldn't work, and and you know, 0:39:52.360 --> 0:39:56.480 two months in we made a really positive expansion decision. 0:39:56.960 --> 0:39:58.760 But I'll just tell you I was trying to figure 0:39:58.760 --> 0:40:01.040 it out as much as I was, you know, doing 0:40:01.080 --> 0:40:04.080 something based on some great knowledge that I had gained 0:40:04.120 --> 0:40:07.000 in my nine year career. Be sure to catch live 0:40:07.120 --> 0:40:10.040 editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days 0:40:10.080 --> 0:40:13.360 at six am Eastern three am Pacific. We're talking to 0:40:13.400 --> 0:40:17.080 Greg Sanky, SEC Commissioner. You can follow him on Twitter 0:40:17.560 --> 0:40:20.840 at Greg Sanky. So thirty one years old, you're a 0:40:20.840 --> 0:40:24.040 commissioner of a conference, which a lot of people would 0:40:24.360 --> 0:40:28.000 would consider to be an incredible accomplishment by thirty one, 0:40:28.160 --> 0:40:30.040 What did your family think at this point in time, 0:40:30.080 --> 0:40:32.839 Not your wife, but your mom and dad back home 0:40:32.840 --> 0:40:35.200 in New York. Were they blown away by your success? 0:40:35.239 --> 0:40:38.160 What did they think of this? I probably found out 0:40:38.360 --> 0:40:41.280 three years later. I had the ability to buy tickets 0:40:41.320 --> 0:40:43.239 to the Final four, and I brought my brother and 0:40:43.280 --> 0:40:46.120 my brother lives in Hawaii he's younger than I am, 0:40:46.160 --> 0:40:48.480 and my parents to Tampa for the Final four, I 0:40:48.520 --> 0:40:52.480 think it was. And we're sitting like these great seats 0:40:52.480 --> 0:40:54.480 and it was a year at the University of Connecticut. 0:40:54.480 --> 0:40:56.400 One of my dad looks at me and says, I 0:40:56.440 --> 0:40:58.520 think you made the right decision, because when I told 0:40:58.600 --> 0:41:00.919 him that I wasn't gonna be an engineer. He said, 0:41:00.960 --> 0:41:03.200 you're missing the boat. You're missing the boat. As I 0:41:03.280 --> 0:41:06.600 tell you that story, I can smell to our garage 0:41:06.719 --> 0:41:09.879 where I told him, the exact spot where I had 0:41:09.920 --> 0:41:14.000 that conversation. So said, I think he made the right decision. 0:41:14.640 --> 0:41:18.200 And then I called him and there's another story I 0:41:18.239 --> 0:41:20.080 want to tell you about the South End experience and 0:41:20.160 --> 0:41:23.440 intersects with me being in the SEC. But when I 0:41:23.480 --> 0:41:25.560 called him to tell him I was leaving the Southland 0:41:25.560 --> 0:41:29.520 Commissioner's job to take an associate Commissioner's job the SEC. 0:41:29.600 --> 0:41:32.000 So why would you do that? And he's like the 0:41:32.040 --> 0:41:34.719 only person who really ever said it that way to me, Like, 0:41:34.760 --> 0:41:37.240 why would you leave a stable job? Or you're the boss? 0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:40.040 And you know that was his frame of reference that 0:41:40.120 --> 0:41:43.759 you had risen this ladder. I was paid, you know, 0:41:44.520 --> 0:41:47.160 well enough, and lived in Dallas, which was great, and 0:41:47.680 --> 0:41:50.200 UH loves that work. But you know, I was ready 0:41:50.200 --> 0:41:53.719 for that new challenge, which kind of materialized in a 0:41:53.760 --> 0:41:57.040 phone conversation with Mike's life one day in August of 0:41:57.120 --> 0:41:58.880 two thousand two. I want to get to that in 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:00.239 a sect, but I want to go back to you 0:42:00.280 --> 0:42:02.320 telling your dad you didn't want to be an engineer, 0:42:02.360 --> 0:42:04.160 because I feel like there's a lot of people out 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:07.160 there listening right now, especially if they're on the younger side. 0:42:07.160 --> 0:42:09.200 They may be in college out for the summer, listening 0:42:09.239 --> 0:42:12.640 to this podcast. And when you're young, a lot of 0:42:12.680 --> 0:42:16.560 what you do initially is fulfill the expectations and dreams 0:42:16.600 --> 0:42:20.080 potentially of other people, right and uh, and and I 0:42:20.080 --> 0:42:22.759 think that's probably somewhat what you were doing going and 0:42:22.800 --> 0:42:25.640 becoming an engineer was fulfilling a dream that your dad 0:42:25.680 --> 0:42:29.080 had for you. How difficult was it for you to 0:42:29.200 --> 0:42:32.319 tell him that you weren't going to do maybe what 0:42:32.400 --> 0:42:34.560 he thought you should be doing and become an engineer. 0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:40.080 My memory is enormous. Um, you know, just uh, I'm 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:42.000 gonna tell him I'm not going to do this because 0:42:42.000 --> 0:42:44.600 I walked into a tier the way you phrase the question, 0:42:44.880 --> 0:42:46.439 I don't think I put a lot of thought into 0:42:46.480 --> 0:42:49.120 what I was going to major in. It was, hey, engineer, 0:42:49.160 --> 0:42:51.480 you make good money, You'll always have a job. I 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:53.560 get to go to school in Texas. This is gonna 0:42:53.560 --> 0:42:55.440 be great. I want to go live in Texas and 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:58.960 see what life's like there. And uh, you know, everything worked, 0:42:59.000 --> 0:43:02.040 But then when I had to walk through on my 0:43:02.160 --> 0:43:06.280 own what's life going to look like? UM, that's where 0:43:06.360 --> 0:43:10.880 this other conversation took place. Almost all internally. Uh, my 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:12.880 wife and I were dating. I don't remember she and 0:43:12.880 --> 0:43:15.719 I have any deep conversations about things. I think there 0:43:15.760 --> 0:43:18.920 was a time when eventually we talked it through. But 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:20.680 I had to walk and say, hey, Dad, I need 0:43:20.680 --> 0:43:23.160 to talk to you about something. And then I said, 0:43:23.600 --> 0:43:25.600 you know, I don't want to be an engineer. I 0:43:25.600 --> 0:43:28.480 want to work with people, which is really kind of ironic. 0:43:28.520 --> 0:43:31.760 I just couldn't see the people's side of being an engineer. 0:43:31.760 --> 0:43:34.680 Now I've got all kinds of friends with engineering degrees 0:43:34.719 --> 0:43:37.960 the lead companies or do things with people. But all 0:43:38.040 --> 0:43:41.800 I saw at that point was, you know, drawings in 0:43:41.880 --> 0:43:46.320 electrical circuits. UM. And so my my teaching and coaching 0:43:46.440 --> 0:43:48.839 was I had an uncle who taught and coached, and 0:43:48.840 --> 0:43:51.800 he like had this great looking life, drove a Camaro, 0:43:51.960 --> 0:43:54.400 which wasn't the be all end off for me in 0:43:54.440 --> 0:43:56.920 the least seventies, but you know, it's like, hey, you 0:43:56.920 --> 0:44:00.400 get to work with people. I love the competitive aspect 0:44:00.480 --> 0:44:02.640 of sports. I love playing sports. I love thinking it 0:44:02.760 --> 0:44:07.680 through and watching UM and I love the educational setting. 0:44:07.719 --> 0:44:12.320 I've never considered professional sports as a as a career 0:44:13.000 --> 0:44:16.759 path for me. It's always been in the context of education. 0:44:16.840 --> 0:44:20.320 And that's what really informed that day. I just didn't 0:44:20.320 --> 0:44:22.640 know it when when we had that conversation. But he 0:44:22.680 --> 0:44:25.880 never said no. To my dad's credit, he said, you know, uh, 0:44:26.160 --> 0:44:28.560 you're missing the boat. He didn't say you're making a mistake. 0:44:28.719 --> 0:44:30.680 I don't know what boat I missed, but he certainly 0:44:30.680 --> 0:44:33.200 did miss a boat. I will freely acknowledge that one. 0:44:33.239 --> 0:44:35.239 But I caught a caught a much better one for me. 0:44:35.600 --> 0:44:38.560 So how many hours are you working? So a lot 0:44:38.600 --> 0:44:40.759 of people want to get that initial job, they don't 0:44:40.760 --> 0:44:44.000 necessarily work that hard at it because your initial jobs 0:44:44.200 --> 0:44:46.040 they may not be great jobs, right, So, I mean, 0:44:46.080 --> 0:44:49.160 when you're grinding, it's not like you're making necessarily really 0:44:49.200 --> 0:44:51.719 important decisions or things that you think. And there's a 0:44:51.719 --> 0:44:54.080 lot of people listening now who will have been interns. 0:44:54.120 --> 0:44:56.520 I mean, you're literally the lowest man on the totem pole, 0:44:56.640 --> 0:44:59.040 so to speak. How many hours are you working as 0:44:59.080 --> 0:45:02.360 you work yourself? Yeah, in a real job, I tracked 0:45:02.400 --> 0:45:04.799 for a while because I was working. I worked all 0:45:04.840 --> 0:45:07.880 the time, and I got up to eighty hours a 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:09.919 few weeks when we because I think people are hearing 0:45:09.960 --> 0:45:12.360 that now and they're like eighty hours as the like 0:45:12.440 --> 0:45:15.279 you think of a director of intermural sports as like 0:45:15.400 --> 0:45:18.040 kind of not a hard working job, right, I mean 0:45:18.080 --> 0:45:20.000 like for a lot of people, I think that was 0:45:20.040 --> 0:45:23.080 the one man. Yeah, so I'm showing up at ten 0:45:23.080 --> 0:45:26.640 in the morning and I'd be there till midnight. Um, 0:45:26.840 --> 0:45:29.360 so those are fourteen hour days. You do five of 0:45:29.360 --> 0:45:32.000 those or four of those, You're you're pretty far down 0:45:32.080 --> 0:45:34.719 the road, uh for eighty events, and then you have 0:45:35.440 --> 0:45:37.759 eighty hours. Then you have a few special events over 0:45:37.800 --> 0:45:40.839 the weekend and that's all you do. And I can 0:45:40.920 --> 0:45:43.840 remember thinking, man, when I when I was thinking about 0:45:43.840 --> 0:45:46.560 not being an engineer, it was because I didn't want 0:45:46.600 --> 0:45:49.480 to live my life for the weekend. I mean literally, 0:45:49.560 --> 0:45:53.640 clais that those engineering labs I think about the weekend. 0:45:53.680 --> 0:45:55.640 I'm like, this is really a rotten way to live. 0:45:55.800 --> 0:45:58.400 It's just like the Lover Boys song working for the 0:45:58.440 --> 0:46:01.080 Weekend was popular at the time. You're like, I don't 0:46:01.120 --> 0:46:03.080 want to live for the weekend. There's gonna be something 0:46:03.160 --> 0:46:05.799 that that resonates more, And all of a sudden, I 0:46:05.800 --> 0:46:07.480 get this job, and I don't even know what a 0:46:07.560 --> 0:46:11.120 weekend is because it's just constant. But you know, that 0:46:11.200 --> 0:46:14.880 prepared me. So then when I'm Conference commissioner. Um, my 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:17.040 first year, I ended up in the hospital because I 0:46:17.080 --> 0:46:19.760 worked so much and slept so little and did an exercise. 0:46:19.800 --> 0:46:22.239 In fact, the story I was going to share one 0:46:22.320 --> 0:46:24.560 of them was I was flying here for my first 0:46:24.600 --> 0:46:27.400 meeting with Roy Kramer in the SEC office, the office 0:46:27.760 --> 0:46:30.719 that I'm sitting in as we conduct this interview, and 0:46:30.760 --> 0:46:34.200 at eight seven, I'm thirty two years old. I get 0:46:34.200 --> 0:46:37.080 off a plane in Atlanta. I go to the bathroom 0:46:37.120 --> 0:46:40.640 at Gate I mean the memories that I'm standing at 0:46:40.680 --> 0:46:43.680 the urinal, doing what one does at the urinal. I 0:46:43.719 --> 0:46:45.600 get light headed, and the next thing you know, I 0:46:45.640 --> 0:46:48.480 hear somebody saying, don't worry, sir, stay on the floor. 0:46:48.560 --> 0:46:52.480 We've called for help. And like I'm wondering who he's 0:46:52.520 --> 0:46:55.880 talking to. And I realized I'm on the bathroom floor. 0:46:56.200 --> 0:46:58.480 And one of the fundamentals in life is when you're 0:46:58.480 --> 0:47:01.360 getting up off the bathroom floor or you're never in 0:47:01.400 --> 0:47:04.239 a good spot in life. And mine wasn't like a 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:07.719 crazy Saturday night bender or something, but I had my 0:47:07.800 --> 0:47:11.399 heart freaked out. I had a natural fibrillation and just 0:47:11.880 --> 0:47:14.160 I went down and then I almost passed out again 0:47:14.160 --> 0:47:16.759 in the airport. I'm thirty two years old and I 0:47:16.800 --> 0:47:20.399 spent a night in the hospital, and you know, I've 0:47:20.400 --> 0:47:22.160 got a four year old and a one year old 0:47:22.239 --> 0:47:26.400 and like a two dollar insurance policy on myself. And 0:47:26.400 --> 0:47:29.000 it's one of those eye opening moments about Wow, how 0:47:29.000 --> 0:47:31.359 are you going to live now? You've you've ground it 0:47:31.400 --> 0:47:33.200 as hard as you can, but you're gonna have to 0:47:33.200 --> 0:47:35.960 take care of yourself as well. Was what caused that? 0:47:36.080 --> 0:47:37.799 Was it that you were working? I mean, I don't know, 0:47:37.800 --> 0:47:40.960 and I'm enough about the condition there you faint, but 0:47:41.360 --> 0:47:44.480 was it brought on by just work? At to access? 0:47:44.520 --> 0:47:46.000 I mean, what did they tell you about how to 0:47:46.000 --> 0:47:48.640 get better? Yeah? It was well, we don't really know 0:47:48.719 --> 0:47:51.520 what triggered it, but your was a vagal nerve hopefully 0:47:51.520 --> 0:47:54.120 I say it the right you know, has a function here. 0:47:54.160 --> 0:47:57.040 And they were asking me about sleep patterns and how 0:47:57.120 --> 0:48:01.160 much caffeina I was consuming. And the best description as 0:48:01.200 --> 0:48:04.560 there's a sign feld where Kramer gets free lattes and 0:48:04.560 --> 0:48:06.600 so he's going in there all the time. And that 0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:09.120 was me. I was sleeping like four or five hours 0:48:09.120 --> 0:48:11.520 a night. I'd wake up my mind's going a hundred 0:48:11.520 --> 0:48:14.120 miles an hour at four in the morning. I'd work 0:48:14.160 --> 0:48:17.800 all day. I coached my kids soccer team at that point, 0:48:17.880 --> 0:48:20.480 and I drink like three and four lattes through the day, 0:48:20.640 --> 0:48:24.680 like the hyper caffe nation, and so uh we backed 0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:27.520 it off there started an exercise, paid a little bit 0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:31.160 more attention to nutrition, and learned that I had to 0:48:31.200 --> 0:48:33.680 rely on my staff a little bit more effectively. So 0:48:33.760 --> 0:48:35.759 do you call the SEC when you're going to that 0:48:35.800 --> 0:48:37.400 interview and say, Hey, I'm gonna have to miss it. 0:48:37.400 --> 0:48:39.879 I'm in the Atlanta hospital instead because I passed out 0:48:39.920 --> 0:48:42.320 at the urnal. Well, I wasn't here for I was 0:48:42.360 --> 0:48:45.399 here for a meeting. So one double A commissioners would 0:48:45.400 --> 0:48:48.040 go around myself, the Southern Conference Commissioner and the Big 0:48:48.040 --> 0:48:51.719 Sky Commissioner. We decided strategically we'd go see the big guy. 0:48:51.800 --> 0:48:55.400 So Roy Kramer, Jim Delaney, Gene Corgan was at the 0:48:55.400 --> 0:48:58.920 a SEC Tom Hanson and just talk about issues because 0:48:58.960 --> 0:49:01.600 we wanted to guarante TEA games, you know, the FCS 0:49:01.680 --> 0:49:04.319 games everybody complains about. So I was on the other 0:49:04.480 --> 0:49:08.480 that would make you yeah, make your budget, and um, 0:49:08.560 --> 0:49:11.120 you know we were better than Sun Belt Schools. I'll 0:49:11.160 --> 0:49:13.880 just tell you right now that when they were starting football, 0:49:14.360 --> 0:49:16.640 the Southland Schools would get three teams in the one 0:49:16.680 --> 0:49:19.399 Double A playoffs and they had a winning record at 0:49:19.440 --> 0:49:22.120 that time against Sun Belt school So there was there 0:49:22.200 --> 0:49:24.440 was some half to it, and we needed to improve 0:49:24.480 --> 0:49:27.279 the one Double A playoffs and talked about where we 0:49:27.320 --> 0:49:29.120 wanted to be friendly with them. So we were coming 0:49:29.120 --> 0:49:31.239 here for a meeting. So I literally had to call 0:49:31.280 --> 0:49:33.600 and say I'm not gonna make it. I'm spending the 0:49:33.680 --> 0:49:38.239 night in the hospital. As it turns out, that's right. 0:49:38.640 --> 0:49:40.600 When I tell the story in a room of people, 0:49:40.640 --> 0:49:42.120 I say, look, if any of you work for an 0:49:42.120 --> 0:49:45.400 airline someday, the way to begin the call is not 0:49:45.680 --> 0:49:47.680 the way it began with my wife, which is hello, 0:49:47.800 --> 0:49:50.080 Mrs Sanky, this is Mike from Delta Airlines. If you 0:49:50.160 --> 0:49:53.600 heard about your husband. And when I was hand at 0:49:53.600 --> 0:49:55.759 the phone, I'm an emergency room and they're going to 0:49:55.880 --> 0:50:00.200 administer hepperin to prevent blood clotting, is what they've told me. 0:50:00.280 --> 0:50:02.960 So I'm all freaked out about having a stroke of 0:50:03.000 --> 0:50:05.920 some sort because my heart's not clearing the blood because 0:50:05.960 --> 0:50:08.239 it's fluttering as opposed to beating. And I get this 0:50:08.280 --> 0:50:10.640 phone my wife. The first thing she said to me 0:50:10.719 --> 0:50:12.239 is what are you trying to do to me? And 0:50:12.280 --> 0:50:16.279 I'm like, I think I'm okay, here's what happened. Um, 0:50:16.520 --> 0:50:18.200 She's like, do I need to come out there. I'm like, no, 0:50:18.400 --> 0:50:21.160 it'll be fine. We'll just we'll get through this. So 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:23.719 that was like a Tuesday. And then on Thursday, I 0:50:23.760 --> 0:50:26.160 was playing in an adult hockey league back in Dallas, 0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:28.640 and so she got a little bit riled up because 0:50:28.640 --> 0:50:30.480 I said, well, I'm gonna play because I might as 0:50:30.520 --> 0:50:33.520 well figure out if my heart's gonna freak out on me. 0:50:34.000 --> 0:50:35.920 No better place than on a hockey rink, because I've 0:50:35.920 --> 0:50:38.839 got a helmet and pads on, and uh, I've never 0:50:38.920 --> 0:50:42.200 had that problem again. Fox Sports Radio has the best 0:50:42.280 --> 0:50:45.120 sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our 0:50:45.120 --> 0:50:48.600 shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the 0:50:48.640 --> 0:50:51.800 I Heart Radio app search f s are to listen live. 0:50:52.440 --> 0:50:55.359 Uh so you we we circle back around now we're 0:50:55.360 --> 0:50:58.680 talking by the way to Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sanky. 0:50:58.719 --> 0:51:01.120 You're listening to the Winds and Lost his podcast here 0:51:01.120 --> 0:51:04.200 with Clay Travis um, you get so you're the commissioner 0:51:04.239 --> 0:51:07.200 in the south Land Conference. It is your dad's telling 0:51:07.200 --> 0:51:09.560 you got the best gig ever you're showing taking your 0:51:09.600 --> 0:51:12.719 family to the final four. And then you get an 0:51:12.719 --> 0:51:16.560 opportunity to potentially not be a commissioner anymore and go 0:51:16.719 --> 0:51:20.040 to the Southeastern Conference. How does that happen? Yeah, so, 0:51:20.120 --> 0:51:22.960 Mike Slide, if you paid attention closely to the story, 0:51:23.520 --> 0:51:26.680 Mike Slide and I are on a committee in ninety seven, 0:51:26.800 --> 0:51:29.080 are in Kansas City, and I met him once but 0:51:29.120 --> 0:51:31.200 didn't know him. We're standing off to the side and 0:51:31.200 --> 0:51:33.279 he says, well, tell me your story. So I I 0:51:33.360 --> 0:51:35.680 go through a version of what I've told you here. 0:51:35.680 --> 0:51:37.799 I want to get to the Utica College party, says 0:51:37.920 --> 0:51:41.080 Utica College. I was born and raised in Utica, New York. 0:51:41.120 --> 0:51:43.759 And I said really, And he said, where'd you live there? 0:51:43.800 --> 0:51:47.040 And so it started this conversation. A couple of years later, 0:51:47.120 --> 0:51:50.000 he said, Hey, if you ever back in Utica. Every 0:51:50.000 --> 0:51:52.520 Saturday night, my family used to heat at Joe's Restaurant. 0:51:52.560 --> 0:51:54.680 He said, here's where it is. It's on Bleaker Street. 0:51:54.680 --> 0:51:56.200 When you see it, you won't want to go in. 0:51:56.280 --> 0:51:58.480 But they make their sauce every morning. It was an 0:51:58.560 --> 0:52:02.719 Italian restaurant. So Kathy and I were we flew to Syracuse. 0:52:02.800 --> 0:52:05.280 We were driving out to Newport, Rhode Island for meetings 0:52:05.280 --> 0:52:07.120 where Mike and Liz would be attending, and I said, 0:52:07.120 --> 0:52:09.280 why don't we leave early and go have lunch at Joe's. 0:52:10.040 --> 0:52:12.719 So he did, and then I told Mike about doing it, 0:52:12.760 --> 0:52:15.000 and I've told folks I think that was the most 0:52:15.040 --> 0:52:17.520 significant decision of my career, was to go eat lunch 0:52:17.520 --> 0:52:20.920 with Joe's. It was great. It was just when he said, 0:52:21.000 --> 0:52:23.840 was like ten bucks for for a lunch of pasta 0:52:23.960 --> 0:52:27.840 and a salad and great sauce and um. So we 0:52:27.920 --> 0:52:32.520 started this conversation where you built a friendship. And about 0:52:32.520 --> 0:52:34.120 a year and a half later, he offered me a 0:52:34.200 --> 0:52:36.440 chance to work for him at Conference USA. And I 0:52:36.440 --> 0:52:39.160 didn't want to move to Chicago. I really liked kind 0:52:39.160 --> 0:52:42.040 of the leadership position I had. And then when he 0:52:42.120 --> 0:52:46.319 came here to the SEC I was, John Swofford called me. 0:52:46.440 --> 0:52:48.919 Tom Hanson, the Pack twelve commissioner, called me and Mike 0:52:48.920 --> 0:52:51.839 and said I'm gonna recommend you be the next commissioner 0:52:51.840 --> 0:52:55.279 of Conference USA. So I got in the interview process 0:52:55.360 --> 0:52:57.520 and went through a phone interview, and then like a 0:52:57.560 --> 0:53:00.440 week went by and I never heard back. So I 0:53:00.520 --> 0:53:02.680 called Mike and I said, hey, what's going on with 0:53:02.719 --> 0:53:05.120 your old job? He was here in the SEC office 0:53:05.239 --> 0:53:07.560 that I'm sitting in right now, and he said, look, 0:53:07.560 --> 0:53:09.560 I've been busy. I haven't paid any attention. And I 0:53:09.600 --> 0:53:13.080 remember Clay not believing him, like guys just kind of 0:53:13.120 --> 0:53:16.200 giving me the brush off. Once I got here and 0:53:16.239 --> 0:53:18.720 saw what it was for him, it was all complete 0:53:18.800 --> 0:53:21.800 learning experience. He was right. He hadn't thought about Conference 0:53:21.840 --> 0:53:24.760 USA at all, just because his life had been taken 0:53:24.800 --> 0:53:27.319 over by the SEC. But at the end of the 0:53:27.360 --> 0:53:29.920 conversation he said, he said, hey, by the way, I've 0:53:29.920 --> 0:53:32.560 got a job open here and would you ever think 0:53:32.600 --> 0:53:35.560 about working for the SEC? And when he tried to 0:53:35.600 --> 0:53:38.040 hire me a Conference USA, Kathy and I talked. They said, 0:53:38.040 --> 0:53:39.960 you know, if it was like the SEC calling for 0:53:39.960 --> 0:53:43.680 an associate commissioner job, I think I take the opportunity. 0:53:44.200 --> 0:53:46.480 So it kind of all this work together where he 0:53:46.520 --> 0:53:48.520 and I spent a month talking. It was back in 0:53:48.960 --> 0:53:51.759 rules compliance and there were a couple of things. One 0:53:51.960 --> 0:53:54.719 the SEC had any kind of issues. Then you know, 0:53:54.719 --> 0:53:57.200 we're always going to have issues, but I had a 0:53:57.239 --> 0:54:00.480 good reputation. I was concerned about kind of getting flattered 0:54:00.560 --> 0:54:04.080 with some of the dirt um. I didn't want to 0:54:04.239 --> 0:54:06.960 be like the enforcement guy and was just work in 0:54:07.040 --> 0:54:10.200 compliance and do rules in terms, and so I was 0:54:10.239 --> 0:54:13.080 really a struggle. People are like, you know. I talked 0:54:13.080 --> 0:54:14.399 to people and they said, I don't know why you'd 0:54:14.400 --> 0:54:15.840 want to go there and do that work. And I 0:54:15.880 --> 0:54:17.759 just got to a point where I was thirty eight, 0:54:18.239 --> 0:54:20.080 I was still young and had a fourth grade in 0:54:20.120 --> 0:54:24.879 a first grader, and I had executed a strategic plan 0:54:24.960 --> 0:54:28.840 at the Southland conference. They were pretty well positioned and 0:54:28.880 --> 0:54:31.160 I could go, like make another lap on the track. 0:54:31.280 --> 0:54:34.680 This is literally the conversation I'm having with myself. I 0:54:34.800 --> 0:54:37.239 love living in Dallas, but if I was ever going 0:54:37.280 --> 0:54:39.880 to take a challenge, you know, I was gonna you 0:54:39.960 --> 0:54:41.840 might as well take a big challenge, and trying to 0:54:41.880 --> 0:54:44.520 come here and and help in the area that that 0:54:44.600 --> 0:54:46.759 he had a job opening was a big challenge. But 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:49.800 it came down to one of my staff, Linda Teelers, 0:54:49.880 --> 0:54:53.400 now a senior associate a d at Florida, asked me 0:54:53.480 --> 0:54:58.040 this incredibly clarifying question and for young people listening or 0:54:58.160 --> 0:55:00.560 people changing jobs. You're gonna have to get the essence 0:55:00.640 --> 0:55:03.000 of things if you're going to make a change. And 0:55:03.080 --> 0:55:05.120 she came in and she's the only one I told 0:55:05.160 --> 0:55:08.759 on my staff of the opportunity. She said, Look, if 0:55:08.800 --> 0:55:12.200 you take this job and in five years you hate it, 0:55:12.560 --> 0:55:14.520 you'll get a job back at like a one double, 0:55:14.560 --> 0:55:17.120 a school or a conference. You're you're good enough, you'll 0:55:17.160 --> 0:55:20.400 get that opportunity. But if you stay here, are you 0:55:20.440 --> 0:55:22.319 going to spend the rest of your life wondering what 0:55:22.400 --> 0:55:26.279 if I had just taken that chance? And she walked out, 0:55:26.320 --> 0:55:29.360 and I remember, you know, that's exactly right. I'm not 0:55:29.400 --> 0:55:31.080 going to live the rest of my life wondering if 0:55:31.080 --> 0:55:33.680 I could have worked at that level. Because when Kathy 0:55:33.719 --> 0:55:36.480 and I had the conversation about working in college sports, 0:55:36.480 --> 0:55:38.799 it was and I wonder how far I might go? 0:55:39.800 --> 0:55:44.120 So moved here and O two hated it. Just to 0:55:44.160 --> 0:55:47.600 be honest, it was very different. Um, you know, Mike 0:55:47.719 --> 0:55:50.120 was trying to figure it out, and uh, what did 0:55:50.120 --> 0:55:53.160 you hate about it? I had been I led a 0:55:53.239 --> 0:55:57.600 group of ten people and got to set an agenda, 0:55:57.760 --> 0:56:00.640 and when I saw problems would ask to her opinion 0:56:00.760 --> 0:56:02.200 or say, hey, why don't you go take care of 0:56:02.239 --> 0:56:04.719 it this way? And then all of a sudden, I'm 0:56:04.760 --> 0:56:07.120 just kind of listening and people are looking at me, like, 0:56:07.160 --> 0:56:08.960 why would I listen to you? You were at one 0:56:09.000 --> 0:56:13.080 double A just it was and it just wasn't comfortable 0:56:13.160 --> 0:56:15.319 for me. You know. Mike had said, hey, we'll work 0:56:15.400 --> 0:56:18.240 shoulder to shoulder on these issues, and I couldn't capture 0:56:18.239 --> 0:56:20.440 his attention because he was so busy on other things, 0:56:20.440 --> 0:56:23.960 and I felt like I was alone. So my first week, 0:56:24.600 --> 0:56:28.040 I was threatened with lawsuits over a men's tennis tournament issue, 0:56:28.600 --> 0:56:30.719 and I flew back to Dallas. My wife picks me 0:56:30.800 --> 0:56:32.680 up because I was commuting at that point. She said, 0:56:32.719 --> 0:56:35.000 what happened? I told her and she said, did you 0:56:35.080 --> 0:56:37.200 used to get threatened with lawsuits at the at the 0:56:37.239 --> 0:56:40.200 Southland conference? I said, like in six years at one time, 0:56:40.560 --> 0:56:43.160 I said, I got threatened with three lawsuits over men's tennis. 0:56:43.480 --> 0:56:45.800 I said, I can't imagine when it's at a football issue. 0:56:45.880 --> 0:56:50.160 So that started the misery. The second week was um, 0:56:50.400 --> 0:56:52.440 I forget the name of the quarterback at L s U, 0:56:52.560 --> 0:56:54.840 but Saban said he was nervous one of his brother 0:56:54.920 --> 0:56:57.040 on the sideline and we said no. I said, no, 0:56:57.440 --> 0:56:59.919 you can't do that. That's you can't take a family member, 0:57:00.040 --> 0:57:02.640 just put him on the sideline. And then the third 0:57:02.640 --> 0:57:05.120 week was my first phone call with Jim Herrick, which 0:57:05.160 --> 0:57:07.840 didn't go well because like three months later when he 0:57:07.880 --> 0:57:11.400 got fired in in February oh three. So you're dealing 0:57:11.400 --> 0:57:14.520 with all these issues. I didn't have the knowledge base 0:57:14.680 --> 0:57:19.280 to really solve problems quickly. We had some staff turnover, 0:57:19.480 --> 0:57:23.680 so I was back in that absolute grind. Um. I 0:57:23.760 --> 0:57:26.800 took a pretty significant pay cut to take the opportunity here. 0:57:26.880 --> 0:57:29.880 So you know, I said earlier that I always tried 0:57:29.920 --> 0:57:32.360 to put money in the background, and I asked myself, 0:57:32.760 --> 0:57:35.720 would I'd be moving into a situation that would challenge 0:57:35.760 --> 0:57:37.960 me so that I could learn and grow. I mean, 0:57:38.000 --> 0:57:40.600 that was the template that that I applied, and every 0:57:40.680 --> 0:57:43.400 year I asked myself the same question, like, I'm about 0:57:43.720 --> 0:57:46.040 to go through that process over the next couple of weeks, 0:57:46.080 --> 0:57:47.840 and I've got a little bit quieter time, and I 0:57:47.880 --> 0:57:52.760 still growing in the answers. Yes, uh, in this job certainly, 0:57:53.640 --> 0:57:56.480 But you know, making that move, there were just a 0:57:56.520 --> 0:57:59.040 lot of stuff and the unsettled nous and trying to 0:57:59.080 --> 0:58:01.760 figure it out that we're really really difficult. How did 0:58:01.880 --> 0:58:03.920 Nick Saban respond when you told him he couldn't have 0:58:03.960 --> 0:58:06.600 the brother on the sideline? I think that was the 0:58:06.680 --> 0:58:09.480 end of it, you know, it's it's it's interesting that 0:58:09.480 --> 0:58:13.160 that um all through the years, and you obviously have 0:58:13.200 --> 0:58:15.600 a different relationship when you're the commissioner and the coach. 0:58:16.080 --> 0:58:18.920 But Nick's always been pretty direct both ways, both you know, 0:58:18.960 --> 0:58:22.280 giving and taking, and I respect that no, no hidden 0:58:22.360 --> 0:58:26.360 gend is just very clear conversations back and forth. Be 0:58:26.440 --> 0:58:29.000 sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with 0:58:29.040 --> 0:58:32.640 Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific. 0:58:33.120 --> 0:58:34.920 You mentioned taking a pay cut, and there are a 0:58:34.960 --> 0:58:37.000 lot of people listening right now and we're talking to 0:58:37.320 --> 0:58:40.080 SEC Commissioner Greg Sanky. This is the Wins and Losses 0:58:40.120 --> 0:58:43.400 podcast with Clay Travis. A lot of people out there would, 0:58:43.600 --> 0:58:46.400 and I think in life in general, don't make a 0:58:46.400 --> 0:58:50.360 decision because they can't bear to go back in pay right. 0:58:50.440 --> 0:58:52.960 It's very very common. I've done it a bunch of 0:58:53.000 --> 0:58:55.440 times in my career where I've thought, hey, I liked 0:58:55.480 --> 0:58:57.400 the opportunity. I did it when I decided to give 0:58:57.480 --> 0:58:59.600 up practicing law, which a lot of people you said 0:58:59.600 --> 0:59:01.600 you had the conversation with your dad. I mean a 0:59:01.600 --> 0:59:03.640 lot of people thought I was crazy, you know, graduating 0:59:03.640 --> 0:59:06.480 from Vanderbilt law school and writing a book about sec football, 0:59:06.560 --> 0:59:08.400 Like why was I not in a law firm? What 0:59:08.480 --> 0:59:11.280 was I doing with my life? And I have found 0:59:11.320 --> 0:59:14.000 that if you take the job that always offers you 0:59:14.120 --> 0:59:17.320 the most money, sometimes you maybe not even sometimes, but 0:59:17.480 --> 0:59:20.800 very often you end up trapped at some point, right, 0:59:20.880 --> 0:59:23.600 because there's always an opportunity to make a little bit 0:59:23.600 --> 0:59:26.640 more money. Were you cognizant of that, because I mean 0:59:26.640 --> 0:59:29.840 that's that's not necessarily a traditional path to go somewhere 0:59:30.120 --> 0:59:34.960 and take less money for probably a more challenging situation. Yeah, 0:59:35.000 --> 0:59:38.160 I was attentive to it, and you know that created 0:59:38.200 --> 0:59:40.480 some stress here. You know, the cost of living was 0:59:40.480 --> 0:59:43.280 a bit higher than Dallas. The real estate markets different 0:59:43.960 --> 0:59:46.400 um and I was good at maths, but not great 0:59:46.400 --> 0:59:48.760 at math, so you know, it was a little bit 0:59:48.840 --> 0:59:52.560 lean when I made the move. You've got a young 0:59:52.640 --> 0:59:54.640 family and you've got a way so and people you're 0:59:54.640 --> 0:59:56.320 in Birmingham, they don't think of it as being an 0:59:56.320 --> 0:59:59.200 expensive place, but it can be pretty expensive. I mean 0:59:59.200 --> 1:00:01.640 there's a lot of rich people in Birmingham. Yeah, and 1:00:01.680 --> 1:00:04.360 in Dallas for two dollars. You get a huge house 1:00:04.400 --> 1:00:06.919 for two hundred thousand dollars year, they're going to spend 1:00:06.960 --> 1:00:10.520 every weekend fixing your house. Um, and you know I 1:00:10.880 --> 1:00:12.920 didn't have that time because of the man to the job. 1:00:12.960 --> 1:00:15.320 But I think there's two keys in their one. Yeah. 1:00:15.320 --> 1:00:17.760 I was conscious about, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna take 1:00:17.800 --> 1:00:21.840 a hit monetarily in two of the most significant decisions 1:00:21.880 --> 1:00:25.200 I ever made, taking that internship. So I went was 1:00:25.240 --> 1:00:28.080 actually twenty one tho dollars that year at Utica because 1:00:28.120 --> 1:00:30.160 I had that for about a month and then left 1:00:30.200 --> 1:00:34.120 in July after getting the race down to six and 1:00:34.160 --> 1:00:37.280 then from yeah, from a hundred and seventy five down 1:00:37.280 --> 1:00:40.640 to a D to move to the SEC. So that's 1:00:40.680 --> 1:00:44.440 like a thirty three pay cut um. And then and 1:00:44.560 --> 1:00:48.000 both of those circumstances, I went back from a responsibilities, 1:00:48.080 --> 1:00:52.360 prestige title whatever. Um, you know I wasn't you know, 1:00:52.400 --> 1:00:55.000 I was an intern. So I was like writing letters 1:00:55.040 --> 1:01:00.400 and sealing envelopes and managing tickets and and uh, I 1:01:00.480 --> 1:01:03.200 was in compliance here as opposed to being a commissioner. 1:01:03.800 --> 1:01:05.840 And you know, part of the reason It was hard, 1:01:05.880 --> 1:01:07.720 as you know. I had to be reminded to put 1:01:07.760 --> 1:01:11.680 my ego uh in the drawer and uh, you know, 1:01:11.920 --> 1:01:14.880 do the job. And I actually Clay after a year 1:01:14.880 --> 1:01:17.560 and a half, had pursued an athletics director's job and 1:01:17.640 --> 1:01:22.560 was actually had accepted the athletics director's job at Colgate University. 1:01:22.600 --> 1:01:25.160 And on the morning of the press conference, I didn't 1:01:25.160 --> 1:01:29.960 sleep for two nights. I called the president university and said, uh, 1:01:30.720 --> 1:01:32.840 you know, we need to cancel that press conference. So, 1:01:33.000 --> 1:01:36.560 whether it's Bobby Kremen's, Billy Donovan, whoever has done those things, 1:01:37.400 --> 1:01:39.280 I was on that list. I had to call Mike 1:01:39.320 --> 1:01:42.040 and asked for my job back here. We gotta go, 1:01:42.080 --> 1:01:45.240 we gotta go into this. So you so so you 1:01:45.280 --> 1:01:47.320 get so you're there for a year and a half 1:01:47.480 --> 1:01:49.600 and then you get an opportunity to go to Colgate 1:01:49.680 --> 1:01:52.080 back in the Northeast where you're you and your family 1:01:52.160 --> 1:01:55.120 were from. I mean that's a pretty prestigious school, right, 1:01:55.200 --> 1:01:58.120 I mean, that's that's a job that is a really 1:01:58.520 --> 1:02:01.160 pretty pretty I would imagine odd after job, you go 1:02:01.280 --> 1:02:03.320 through the interview process and by the way, one question 1:02:03.320 --> 1:02:04.960 before I get to there, did you ever find out 1:02:05.000 --> 1:02:08.800 why you didn't get the Conference US A job. Yeah, 1:02:10.080 --> 1:02:13.840 they said, the search consultant said, you can't handle this job. 1:02:13.880 --> 1:02:17.480 You've never been in a big enough setting into that. 1:02:17.600 --> 1:02:19.800 I was ready for that because it happened once. It's 1:02:19.800 --> 1:02:21.760 like a plimeter and get to know you for another 1:02:21.760 --> 1:02:24.840 commissioner's job. I so wait a second. What's harder to 1:02:24.920 --> 1:02:28.640 manage to get the Southland Conference basketball tournament back on 1:02:28.960 --> 1:02:32.040 ESPN after your predecessor hacked them off and they wouldn't 1:02:32.040 --> 1:02:34.720 talk to you for four years, three years? Or to 1:02:34.800 --> 1:02:37.640 schedule the Duke North Carolina and ESPN because he got 1:02:37.800 --> 1:02:40.480 the consultant works for the a SEC. Because I had 1:02:40.520 --> 1:02:42.080 to do the ladder, and I can tell you that's 1:02:42.080 --> 1:02:44.720 a lot more difficult now. Um, you know they made 1:02:44.720 --> 1:02:48.360 their decision that worked pretty well. Uh so yeah, no kidding. 1:02:48.400 --> 1:02:50.440 So okay, so you get the you're you're thinking, Okay, 1:02:50.440 --> 1:02:52.760 this this SEC thing may not be working out. You 1:02:52.800 --> 1:02:55.440 take the job. You had to go through the interview process, 1:02:55.480 --> 1:02:57.800 I imagine in order to get that job, and then 1:02:57.840 --> 1:03:00.360 are you up in like the vicinity, have to be 1:03:00.400 --> 1:03:02.640 in the in the community right to be ready to 1:03:02.680 --> 1:03:05.840 walk over to the press conference. I've gone through two interviews. 1:03:06.320 --> 1:03:09.400 I was up there with my family. I met the trustees, 1:03:09.680 --> 1:03:13.520 which are significant people like now the CEO of Formula 1:03:13.560 --> 1:03:15.840 one right now, a guy named Chase Carey was on 1:03:15.920 --> 1:03:21.320 the board. Chase inter was the primary trustee for my interview. 1:03:21.520 --> 1:03:25.240 Was like one of the top guys at Fox Murdoch 1:03:25.360 --> 1:03:27.680 right he was running direct TV at the time. We 1:03:27.760 --> 1:03:31.360 had conversation. I mean there's subtitent people. A guy named 1:03:31.400 --> 1:03:33.840 Mark Murphy was now the president of the Green Bay 1:03:33.840 --> 1:03:36.800 Packers had left the job. That's why it was open. 1:03:36.840 --> 1:03:39.680 He went to Northwestern University, so I could see go 1:03:39.800 --> 1:03:43.880 to this great university. It's about forty Colgate University is 1:03:43.880 --> 1:03:47.560 about forty miles from my family, my wife's family. My 1:03:47.640 --> 1:03:50.400 kids would get to know their grandparents, which they had 1:03:50.560 --> 1:03:53.840 had that opportunity. Um, they had just gone to the 1:03:53.960 --> 1:03:57.880 National Championship game in one double a football. Um. Their 1:03:57.920 --> 1:04:01.720 hockey team was top ten at the time. Him, So there, 1:04:02.120 --> 1:04:05.000 you know, there were some some opportunities there. And I 1:04:05.000 --> 1:04:06.800 had a friend in the Patriot League, the A d 1:04:06.920 --> 1:04:09.920 at Buck now who just described it as a great 1:04:09.960 --> 1:04:13.840 career experience. And uh, I was up there, I met 1:04:13.840 --> 1:04:16.480 the trustees. I sent my family back to Birmingham to 1:04:16.520 --> 1:04:20.120 finish school. Uh I was. I was, you know, there 1:04:20.120 --> 1:04:22.640 on my own. I didn't sleep. I was literally clear 1:04:22.680 --> 1:04:25.680 on my knees, praying God, what do I do and 1:04:25.800 --> 1:04:27.560 made the decision that I was going to have to 1:04:27.600 --> 1:04:29.760 get up in the morning. I had told Mike I 1:04:29.800 --> 1:04:34.320 was resigning the SEC membership, had been told that UM, 1:04:34.400 --> 1:04:36.480 so they wouldn't be caught off guard by the announcement 1:04:36.480 --> 1:04:40.320 on Monday. And I called him UM and said, Hey, 1:04:40.760 --> 1:04:43.800 this isn't gonna work, Mike, I really would like to 1:04:43.800 --> 1:04:46.240 stay if you'll have me back. He had been the 1:04:46.280 --> 1:04:48.680 a D at Cornell and it kind of advised me 1:04:48.760 --> 1:04:51.760 that wasn't the high point for him. And you know, 1:04:51.960 --> 1:04:54.120 he said, you know, you've done something that I didn't do, 1:04:54.160 --> 1:04:56.880 which was to walk away from the situation that didn't 1:04:57.080 --> 1:04:59.960 didn't work. And then I had to call the college, 1:05:00.160 --> 1:05:03.640 the university president and say, you know, you need to 1:05:03.680 --> 1:05:06.920 cancel the press conference. And then I just shut my 1:05:06.960 --> 1:05:09.360 phone off for like six hours. I told my wife 1:05:09.440 --> 1:05:12.040 and it was it was emotional for her because she thought, 1:05:12.640 --> 1:05:15.439 you know, we were wanted to take the job. Well, 1:05:15.560 --> 1:05:17.720 we had walked through this process for a couple of 1:05:17.760 --> 1:05:20.080 months where it was like, this is the right thing 1:05:20.120 --> 1:05:21.320 to do. And then all of a sudden, I call 1:05:21.440 --> 1:05:23.880 up on a Monday morning at six thirty am and say, hey, 1:05:23.920 --> 1:05:27.800 we're not moving and here's here's why. And then I 1:05:27.880 --> 1:05:30.200 just shut my phone off and just went away and 1:05:30.320 --> 1:05:33.760 I sat by the lake and and just kind of processed. 1:05:33.840 --> 1:05:36.280 And it was an important moment for my success here 1:05:36.280 --> 1:05:38.360 because I said, you know what, I haven't let myself 1:05:38.480 --> 1:05:41.919 enjoy the job. I was so uptight about going into 1:05:41.960 --> 1:05:44.400 the coaches meetings or what was the next issue. I said, 1:05:44.400 --> 1:05:46.400 I'm gonna go have fun and I want to walk 1:05:46.400 --> 1:05:48.960 into the football coaches meeting in destined. So this was 1:05:49.000 --> 1:05:51.680 oh four, and I'm gonna make everybody in that room 1:05:51.720 --> 1:05:56.440 smile at least once and just have fun um. And 1:05:56.480 --> 1:05:58.600 it was a turning point for me here. I I 1:05:58.720 --> 1:06:02.800 began to enjoy the work a lot more, appreciated the level, 1:06:02.920 --> 1:06:06.680 the intensity, uh and the people in a whole fresh way. 1:06:07.120 --> 1:06:09.800 So what was it at Colgate that, ultimately do you 1:06:09.840 --> 1:06:12.720 think attributed to you not sleeping for two nights? Like it? 1:06:12.800 --> 1:06:15.760 Was it just a career trajectory? Was it? What was 1:06:15.800 --> 1:06:17.640 it that sort of in the back of your mind 1:06:17.720 --> 1:06:20.080 you were like, this is just not right. Yeah, it 1:06:20.160 --> 1:06:22.560 was an accumulation of things I should have pulled out 1:06:22.560 --> 1:06:24.479 two or three weeks earlier. I was kind of told 1:06:24.600 --> 1:06:29.160 here's how salary conversations would go, and I had reasonable expectations, 1:06:29.200 --> 1:06:31.000 and I had taken the pay cut to come to 1:06:31.000 --> 1:06:34.000 the SEC, so I was looking to make a step 1:06:34.080 --> 1:06:37.840 forward and it didn't play out just mechanically the way 1:06:37.880 --> 1:06:39.720 it had been explained to me, and that was a 1:06:39.760 --> 1:06:42.880 warning flag. Um. We made a visit up there where 1:06:42.920 --> 1:06:44.920 they're going to let us live in a in some 1:06:45.000 --> 1:06:48.960 campus housing that I had certain expectations on my family 1:06:49.000 --> 1:06:53.160 would live, not overly, you know, elite, but we weren't 1:06:53.160 --> 1:06:55.520 even close to what we saw that day. It was 1:06:55.560 --> 1:06:58.080 really a shock and my wife and kids are looking 1:06:58.080 --> 1:07:00.640 at me, like, I don't think we're going to really 1:07:00.640 --> 1:07:04.240 live here in a great have a great experience. Um, 1:07:04.400 --> 1:07:06.440 we walked into school was a bit of a disaster, 1:07:06.520 --> 1:07:09.320 and there was kind of a blip and a budget circumstance, 1:07:09.360 --> 1:07:12.040 and I'm like, wait a second, If if this is 1:07:12.080 --> 1:07:14.040 the way it is now when they're happy with me, 1:07:14.280 --> 1:07:17.080 what happens after a few years when they're a little 1:07:17.080 --> 1:07:19.960 bit tired of seeing the a d roll in and 1:07:20.560 --> 1:07:23.120 probably just came to my senses to what I should 1:07:23.160 --> 1:07:26.920 have seen three weeks ago. But I wanted it to work, UM, 1:07:26.960 --> 1:07:29.000 and it was a really good lesson for me, and 1:07:29.080 --> 1:07:33.000 some other opportunities that I that I didn't pursue or 1:07:33.240 --> 1:07:36.160 stopped at the right time, And I think everybody has 1:07:36.200 --> 1:07:38.640 to go through those, you know, kintting to your point 1:07:38.640 --> 1:07:41.240 about transitioning from a law firm, Well, then you you 1:07:41.320 --> 1:07:43.880 get into something right and you learn a little bit 1:07:43.960 --> 1:07:46.080 so that the next time you have an opportunity, you 1:07:46.120 --> 1:07:48.880 know a little bit better how to discern whether it's 1:07:48.880 --> 1:07:51.400 a yes or no, or what questions to ask. And 1:07:52.040 --> 1:07:55.440 UM colgates a great place. They have had great success. 1:07:55.480 --> 1:07:58.680 The men's basketball team gave Tennessee a tough, tough game 1:07:58.720 --> 1:08:01.760 in the n c A Tournament. But it just wasn't 1:08:01.840 --> 1:08:04.280 the right situation for me, even though I thought for 1:08:04.400 --> 1:08:06.520 months that it would be. So then you go back 1:08:06.560 --> 1:08:08.600 to the SEC and basically say, I'm going to commit 1:08:08.680 --> 1:08:11.680 myself to this job. When did you start thinking, hey, 1:08:11.720 --> 1:08:13.880 maybe one day I could be the successor to Mike's 1:08:13.880 --> 1:08:15.760 alive or were you thinking that from the moment you 1:08:15.840 --> 1:08:19.000 first started working at the SEC. No I came here 1:08:19.000 --> 1:08:21.200 with the idea I could go to the Sun Belt 1:08:21.360 --> 1:08:23.679 or Conference U s A or the Mid American Conference. 1:08:23.760 --> 1:08:26.439 Things had changed where you weren't going to jump. It 1:08:26.479 --> 1:08:29.640 didn't seem from one double A into a one A situation, 1:08:29.720 --> 1:08:34.479 or from FCS to FBS and and so. Um in 1:08:34.640 --> 1:08:38.000 like oh nine, the Mid American Conference Commissioner's job came 1:08:38.080 --> 1:08:40.960 open and I went through that process, had a great 1:08:41.080 --> 1:08:46.320 visit with the search committee, and UM it was in March. 1:08:46.840 --> 1:08:49.599 I thought that was the opportunity. I've been invited back 1:08:49.640 --> 1:08:52.280 as one of two finalists, and they wanted me to 1:08:52.280 --> 1:08:55.160 sign a memoranum of understanding before I could go to 1:08:55.200 --> 1:08:59.040 the final interview. And in the Colgate situation that had 1:08:59.040 --> 1:09:01.479 come up, and I never signed the memorandum, and then 1:09:01.520 --> 1:09:04.599 I was able to walk away. And so I said, look, 1:09:04.680 --> 1:09:07.519 there were some financial things I needed clarity on and 1:09:07.520 --> 1:09:09.200 I just said, I'm not going to sign an m 1:09:09.200 --> 1:09:11.320 o U. It hadn't been presented to me by the 1:09:11.360 --> 1:09:14.639 search firm upfront. I said, I'll go into the interview, 1:09:14.680 --> 1:09:18.880 but if if somebody's like really unpleasant to me in 1:09:18.920 --> 1:09:23.760 the interview process. UMA, he was saying that you would 1:09:23.760 --> 1:09:25.600 accept the job if it got offered to you and 1:09:25.880 --> 1:09:28.719 they're asking. I mean, that's part of some search firms 1:09:29.240 --> 1:09:32.040 function that way. And so I said, I'm not going 1:09:32.120 --> 1:09:34.360 to sign the m o U and kind of we 1:09:34.400 --> 1:09:38.240 went back and forth probably forty eight hours, and UM, 1:09:38.439 --> 1:09:40.320 it's probably the one time where I said, you know, 1:09:40.360 --> 1:09:43.040 there was it's a pretty good salary jump for where 1:09:43.080 --> 1:09:45.760 I was and and talked it through here and got 1:09:45.760 --> 1:09:50.160 a little bit more and and maybe Clay, that was 1:09:50.200 --> 1:09:53.960 the first time I ever thought about, UM, you know 1:09:54.000 --> 1:09:58.679 what happens when when Mike Slive decides to step away 1:09:58.840 --> 1:10:03.360 and he and I, uh, just a conversation about, Hey, 1:10:03.400 --> 1:10:05.439 one of the reasons I'm thinking about going to the 1:10:05.439 --> 1:10:08.479 Mid American Conference is you know, you'll work five more 1:10:08.560 --> 1:10:12.080 years or so, and then i'd be a candidate as 1:10:12.080 --> 1:10:16.920 opposed to being an internal candidate, potentially having multiple internal candidates. 1:10:17.840 --> 1:10:21.120 And UM encouraged me to rethink that, and I did, 1:10:21.240 --> 1:10:24.760 and you know, the rest is history, as they say, 1:10:24.800 --> 1:10:27.240 But it wasn't quite this easy a decision in the moment, 1:10:27.640 --> 1:10:31.200 all right. So while you're at the SEC working there, 1:10:31.240 --> 1:10:34.479 what would you say your expertise became on a day 1:10:34.520 --> 1:10:36.519 to day basis you would, I'm sure take care of 1:10:36.560 --> 1:10:38.960 a lot of different things. But what did you find 1:10:39.000 --> 1:10:40.760 as you kind of found your footing after you came 1:10:40.800 --> 1:10:43.920 back from that Colligate job, was sort of your wheelhouse 1:10:43.960 --> 1:10:49.280 that you think you contributed to most of the conference end? Wow, 1:10:49.479 --> 1:10:55.120 that's like, uh, that's a question. You know. I had 1:10:55.160 --> 1:11:02.200 this regulatory compliance legislative role and threw myself into what 1:11:02.240 --> 1:11:03.760 I think it was pretty good at what was hand, 1:11:03.960 --> 1:11:07.360 what was what was happening nationally in that that regard 1:11:07.439 --> 1:11:10.000 and being ahead of it, but also thinking of and 1:11:10.160 --> 1:11:13.439 understanding what was happening on our campus that I still 1:11:13.479 --> 1:11:17.240 think I understand, not um at the level of detail 1:11:17.280 --> 1:11:19.320 if I lived on one of our campuses, but I 1:11:19.360 --> 1:11:22.360 know how our people think, and that is an asset 1:11:23.160 --> 1:11:25.439 um and that's one that comes with having now been 1:11:25.479 --> 1:11:31.000 here for sixteen and a half years. UM. And then 1:11:31.400 --> 1:11:35.520 I think, um, I say this with a level of humility. 1:11:36.120 --> 1:11:38.479 I think I was of more benefit to Mike than 1:11:38.520 --> 1:11:42.160 I understood at the time because he gave me permission 1:11:42.200 --> 1:11:45.400 to be just completely honest with him, and I was 1:11:45.640 --> 1:11:50.040 good at playing that role, not because of anything in particular, 1:11:50.160 --> 1:11:52.760 maybe just personality to say, hey, did you think about 1:11:52.760 --> 1:11:55.240 it this way, and he tell me I have and 1:11:55.920 --> 1:12:00.840 I'm going this direction or that's a really bad suggestion. Um. 1:12:00.880 --> 1:12:07.200 But UM, you know, from my perspective, we had a 1:12:07.320 --> 1:12:13.280 really really effective working relationship. What was it like during expansion? 1:12:14.080 --> 1:12:16.960 So you you end up adding Missouri and Texas, A 1:12:16.960 --> 1:12:20.480 and M. I'm guessing that's probably by far the craziest 1:12:20.520 --> 1:12:23.880 time in your time in the SEC office. Would that 1:12:23.920 --> 1:12:26.320 be fair to say? What was that process like from 1:12:26.320 --> 1:12:29.920 your perspective? Yeah? I think um that the year before 1:12:30.120 --> 1:12:34.640 people forget the two thousand and ten was when the 1:12:34.760 --> 1:12:38.519 Pack ten looked at becoming the Pack six team. Right, 1:12:38.600 --> 1:12:40.240 they were going to add Texas, they were going to 1:12:40.280 --> 1:12:43.080 add A and M Oklahoma, Okahoma State and all those 1:12:43.080 --> 1:12:47.680 teams from the Big twelve. Yeah, and expansion among us 1:12:47.680 --> 1:12:52.920 all was relatively quiet at that time, and then it 1:12:53.160 --> 1:12:58.640 just kind of goes and how do we respond? You know, 1:12:58.680 --> 1:13:04.439 we weren't the recruits like everyone else was. Um, and 1:13:04.760 --> 1:13:09.120 twelve worked worked really well. We had just gone through 1:13:09.240 --> 1:13:12.720 a TV renegotiation in two thousand and eight that was 1:13:13.040 --> 1:13:19.240 beneficial with the huge expansion in ESPN revenue, the continuity 1:13:19.240 --> 1:13:22.920 with CBS, and so then eleven comes and it was 1:13:23.000 --> 1:13:26.120 first A and M as people recall, and and yeah, 1:13:26.160 --> 1:13:30.520 there was just a level of intensity around that experience 1:13:30.640 --> 1:13:34.320 from what August into September when it was announced, and 1:13:34.360 --> 1:13:39.000 then on the other side of the announcement was scheduling 1:13:39.040 --> 1:13:41.600 for a thirteen league team, which we were prepared to 1:13:41.640 --> 1:13:48.080 be come and then the Missouri edition in November kind 1:13:48.080 --> 1:13:51.759 of after you've had some of these thirteen team plans settled. 1:13:53.280 --> 1:13:56.920 At the same time, there's this network talk that was 1:13:56.960 --> 1:14:03.400 in the background that was bubbling uh um. And you know, yeah, 1:14:03.479 --> 1:14:06.080 there was an intensity, but then I think the intensity 1:14:06.160 --> 1:14:11.000 ramped up after expansion because you had the need to schedule, 1:14:11.400 --> 1:14:15.479 to orient, to learn, to to accommodate it. Just also 1:14:15.560 --> 1:14:19.320 you've got meetings with two new two universities represented. They're 1:14:19.400 --> 1:14:23.880 learning you, you're learning them, uh and you know, now 1:14:23.920 --> 1:14:30.200 we're into twelve and so the the network idea which 1:14:30.280 --> 1:14:32.760 had been there in oh seven oh eight but not 1:14:33.720 --> 1:14:39.519 you know pursued, is now now has new life. And 1:14:39.760 --> 1:14:43.479 you know, your work from expansion into transition and then 1:14:43.520 --> 1:14:47.400 into how to to launch a conference network. So those 1:14:47.479 --> 1:14:51.519 were really uh set of intense years where you never 1:14:51.640 --> 1:14:55.120 had a business as usual experience. How does schools reach 1:14:55.160 --> 1:14:59.479 out when you know when conference realignment is going on. 1:14:59.760 --> 1:15:02.320 Is that's something where you've got a friend who is 1:15:02.680 --> 1:15:04.599 who is in a school and he calls you up 1:15:04.600 --> 1:15:07.000 and it's like, hey, would you be interested if this 1:15:07.040 --> 1:15:10.880 possibility came out? Like how do you become aware of 1:15:10.920 --> 1:15:14.880 what your options are and the contacts are because it's 1:15:14.880 --> 1:15:17.760 a complex process, right, I mean, nobody wants It's like, 1:15:17.800 --> 1:15:19.559 you don't want to try to get into a conference 1:15:19.600 --> 1:15:21.439 until you know they'll have you. But how do you 1:15:21.439 --> 1:15:23.880 know whether conference can have you? I'm fascinated by the 1:15:23.880 --> 1:15:28.000 whole process by which that takes place. That's formula is 1:15:28.120 --> 1:15:33.400 locked in a fall behind steel doors with secret combinations 1:15:33.479 --> 1:15:39.120 that only I know and so you know it's it varies, 1:15:39.200 --> 1:15:41.800 I think because you really looked across the landscape, so 1:15:41.960 --> 1:15:45.479 you look at at the PACT ten experience that were 1:15:45.479 --> 1:15:50.919 consultants involved outreach ours or people were people calling here 1:15:51.040 --> 1:15:55.560 or intermediaries just said hey, they'd be interested, And obviously 1:15:55.640 --> 1:16:00.599 there's a lot of care. Uh, Missouri and Texas, A 1:16:00.439 --> 1:16:04.920 and M or both members of the American Association Universities 1:16:05.080 --> 1:16:09.240 prestigious research universities or in contiguous states fan bases that 1:16:09.280 --> 1:16:13.800 are similar with metropolitan areas, so there are very few 1:16:13.880 --> 1:16:18.320 who really fit that. But we were never the recruiting 1:16:18.479 --> 1:16:22.080 entity in those processes, and in at least in the 1:16:23.080 --> 1:16:26.800 eleven time frame. How do you deal with leaks like 1:16:26.880 --> 1:16:29.920 that still exists now that you're the commissioner of the conference. 1:16:30.240 --> 1:16:32.240 But I remember and I'm sure you do as well. 1:16:32.320 --> 1:16:35.880 The news officially came out when the SEC accidentally had 1:16:35.960 --> 1:16:39.879 a staged page right on for Missouri announcing that Missouri 1:16:39.920 --> 1:16:42.320 was going to be fourteenth member of the SEC, And 1:16:42.439 --> 1:16:44.639 somebody sent that to me and I remember writing about 1:16:44.680 --> 1:16:46.200 it and being like, oh, this is amazing. But it 1:16:46.240 --> 1:16:48.920 had quotes from you know, a bunch of different people, 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:51.439 like it was seton, ready to roll. But how do 1:16:51.520 --> 1:16:54.040 you know, you know when there's when there's that much interest, 1:16:54.240 --> 1:16:56.680 right and for people who don't remember listening to us 1:16:56.800 --> 1:17:01.600 right now, I mean, realignment was absolute fever, pitch crazy. 1:17:02.080 --> 1:17:07.240 It combines act, you know, business, uh, politics certainly uh 1:17:07.280 --> 1:17:09.920 the money aside, the conference growth, everything. I mean, this 1:17:09.960 --> 1:17:11.639 is as big of a story as you can get. 1:17:11.760 --> 1:17:16.920 How do you handle something like that? Well? Very carefully? So, like, 1:17:16.920 --> 1:17:20.559 how many people do you think the leak is? Well, 1:17:20.640 --> 1:17:23.840 Mike Mike was one of the things I learned a 1:17:23.840 --> 1:17:27.160 lot from working with one of those great privileges of 1:17:27.200 --> 1:17:30.040 my career. You know, for me personally, there are two 1:17:30.040 --> 1:17:32.080 things that really helped me. One, I was in charge 1:17:32.080 --> 1:17:34.439 of a conference and so you realize how different is 1:17:34.479 --> 1:17:37.479 to be the decision maker at the end of the hall, 1:17:38.080 --> 1:17:39.920 even in a small setting. And the second one was 1:17:39.960 --> 1:17:42.800 just to work with him and see how he functioned. 1:17:43.520 --> 1:17:46.520 And you know, you're you're gonna be protective of information. 1:17:46.600 --> 1:17:50.200 I've forgotten about that web page piece. Yeah, that's a 1:17:50.200 --> 1:17:54.200 pretty good memory. That's that brought shock to my face. Um, 1:17:54.240 --> 1:17:57.160 but action when you see that the Missouri joining the 1:17:57.280 --> 1:18:01.880 SEC web page has leaked, as you said it, I'm 1:18:01.920 --> 1:18:05.559 recalling somebody came into my office because, uh, you know, 1:18:05.600 --> 1:18:07.760 at that time, I was an associate commissioner. I had 1:18:07.800 --> 1:18:11.120 not been named the chief operating Officer. My title hadn't 1:18:11.160 --> 1:18:13.559 bumped up, so I had a role, but it wasn't 1:18:13.600 --> 1:18:17.639 like what it became. And I'm like you, you're you've 1:18:17.680 --> 1:18:21.040 got to be kidding me. How does that happen? And 1:18:21.200 --> 1:18:23.240 you know you kind of stayed away from Mike's office 1:18:23.280 --> 1:18:25.040 at that point in the day to let kind of 1:18:25.080 --> 1:18:29.360 whatever whatever fure or you know, be delivered where it 1:18:29.400 --> 1:18:31.600 needed to be delivered, and then I'd come kind of 1:18:32.280 --> 1:18:35.720 clean it up. It's um. But on the other hand, 1:18:35.720 --> 1:18:37.760 there are things that are reported where you're like, that's 1:18:37.760 --> 1:18:40.639 not true. I once sat behind an Army general reading 1:18:40.760 --> 1:18:42.559 USA today in an n c A meeting, and I said, 1:18:42.600 --> 1:18:44.679 you know, in athletics we have these things are leaked 1:18:44.720 --> 1:18:47.559 or anonymous sources say, and you're like, half of it's 1:18:47.600 --> 1:18:49.559 just wrong. I said, what's it like in the military. 1:18:49.640 --> 1:18:51.960 Is during the the original desert storm? He said, oh, 1:18:52.000 --> 1:18:55.240 it's the same thing. So you know, we have to 1:18:55.280 --> 1:18:59.599 be careful because, especially in the Southeastern Conference, there's so 1:18:59.680 --> 1:19:05.120 much interest in what we do that it is um. 1:19:05.280 --> 1:19:09.080 You know, you lose opportunities, you can lose value. Uh, 1:19:09.200 --> 1:19:12.560 you can lose options if it all plays out in 1:19:12.640 --> 1:19:16.120 the media. And we just walked through this discussion of 1:19:16.160 --> 1:19:18.800 alcohol that went on for a long period of time 1:19:18.960 --> 1:19:21.920 this past year, and we had a working group look 1:19:21.960 --> 1:19:26.200 at it. But I'd say continually to our membership, if 1:19:26.200 --> 1:19:28.400 you want to debate this in the newspapers, all that 1:19:28.479 --> 1:19:32.280 will do is harden people's positions on both ends. And 1:19:32.320 --> 1:19:34.600 if we want to work through this collaboratively. We have 1:19:34.800 --> 1:19:38.519 to do it without leaks and anonymous sources. And you know, 1:19:38.560 --> 1:19:40.880 we were pretty good for about fifty one weeks there 1:19:41.439 --> 1:19:44.679 before it became a topic as we had it into destined, 1:19:44.680 --> 1:19:48.320 which we knew it would become. And and really the 1:19:49.880 --> 1:19:51.559 essence of your question is, you know, how do you 1:19:51.640 --> 1:19:53.880 react to to leaks? How do you deal with it? 1:19:54.360 --> 1:19:56.400 You know, you try to manage it up front, not 1:19:56.520 --> 1:19:59.559 because you're trying to be deceitful or overly protected, but 1:19:59.600 --> 1:20:04.559 because you have to have room and freedom in space 1:20:04.680 --> 1:20:09.000 to do the work of the conference. So Mike's live, 1:20:09.760 --> 1:20:14.000 you had the expansion occur, and then he tells you 1:20:14.040 --> 1:20:16.280 when did you become aware that he was planning on 1:20:16.320 --> 1:20:18.640 stepping down? Did he call you into his office and 1:20:18.640 --> 1:20:21.519 tell you? What was that process like for you? Well, 1:20:21.560 --> 1:20:25.519 remember Mike, Mike's prostate cancer reared up in a really, 1:20:26.000 --> 1:20:32.719 really dramatic way in the summer of fourteen UM. And 1:20:33.320 --> 1:20:37.920 I think it's probably in September UM where he and 1:20:37.960 --> 1:20:40.200 I were on his back porch, a place he loved, 1:20:40.280 --> 1:20:44.640 where I really understood, um the gravity of the situation, 1:20:45.120 --> 1:20:49.839 and I had had another opportunity of substance present itself 1:20:49.920 --> 1:20:53.800 in college athletics and all of a sudden, you know, 1:20:54.520 --> 1:20:56.960 a guide to whom I'm loyal, a conference that's been 1:20:57.120 --> 1:21:01.480 a good place for me. Um, it's a little bit undefined. 1:21:01.640 --> 1:21:04.960 And remember this is the summer of two thousand fourteen, 1:21:05.680 --> 1:21:09.639 so we're launching a network. You know, distribution as a question, 1:21:10.280 --> 1:21:13.040 UM as you go into July, and then things started 1:21:13.080 --> 1:21:16.519 to break right around Media Days with Comcast. We had 1:21:16.600 --> 1:21:20.839 Dish and a t tu Verse up front direct barely 1:21:20.920 --> 1:21:24.240 before the actual direct TV came on that night, which 1:21:24.280 --> 1:21:27.160 is what I have. So we were fully distributed, with 1:21:27.200 --> 1:21:29.439 the exception of what was then Cable Vision in New 1:21:29.520 --> 1:21:34.639 York City and we're now on its success or Altis UM. 1:21:34.760 --> 1:21:36.720 So he had that like what's going to happen. You 1:21:36.760 --> 1:21:39.719 had the launch of the network and game scheduled differently 1:21:40.000 --> 1:21:43.160 is an we're gonna watch sec Nation. And then then 1:21:43.360 --> 1:21:46.840 Mike just had this this health reality and you know, 1:21:46.840 --> 1:21:48.920 in retirement. I think what he had said had been 1:21:48.920 --> 1:21:51.439 on his mind during that summer for the next year, 1:21:52.200 --> 1:21:57.720 and UM, that announcement came out in October that he 1:21:57.760 --> 1:22:01.040 would be retiring, and you know he's going through that 1:22:01.120 --> 1:22:05.919 chemo battle just as tough as nails. He had a uh, 1:22:05.960 --> 1:22:09.720 you know, just watching those treatments and and what it 1:22:09.720 --> 1:22:13.479 would do and people who have had you know, friends 1:22:13.600 --> 1:22:18.360 or family members with our colleagues fight cancer, no know 1:22:18.520 --> 1:22:21.280 how hard that battle could be, but just a spirit 1:22:21.479 --> 1:22:25.680 that was remarkable to watch. And then for me in October, 1:22:26.520 --> 1:22:28.280 all of a sudden, I became like the number one 1:22:28.360 --> 1:22:31.120 ranked team in the country. I was kidding with Calipari 1:22:31.240 --> 1:22:35.960 because that your Kentucky went through undefeated until the Semish 1:22:36.120 --> 1:22:39.400 nationally and so people say, well, it's gonna be Greg 1:22:39.439 --> 1:22:41.639 Sanky and that was never the deal. You know. Nick 1:22:41.720 --> 1:22:44.600 Zeppos was the chair of our Presidents and Chancellors, and 1:22:44.640 --> 1:22:47.360 he was great to say, we're gonna go through a 1:22:47.400 --> 1:22:50.160 full search. That's in the best interest of the conference, 1:22:50.200 --> 1:22:53.040 and frankly, that's the right thing for you. A lot 1:22:53.080 --> 1:22:55.480 of people think highly of you. You'll be a candidate. 1:22:56.360 --> 1:23:01.040 And then it was a really intense I'm a preparation, 1:23:01.479 --> 1:23:04.040 like how do you see this conference in the future, 1:23:04.600 --> 1:23:06.560 And so I had my day job to do. We 1:23:06.880 --> 1:23:08.680 all shared a little bit more because we wanted to 1:23:08.680 --> 1:23:11.840 make sure Mike was well supported and his schedule was 1:23:11.960 --> 1:23:14.519 different as as he went through his his health battle 1:23:15.120 --> 1:23:17.439 and then I was trying to repair materials and how 1:23:17.479 --> 1:23:21.600 do you communicate about the future of the Southeastern Conference? 1:23:21.640 --> 1:23:24.880 And it was like the posture or the question to 1:23:24.920 --> 1:23:27.800 me was how do you take the SEC to the 1:23:27.840 --> 1:23:31.000 next level? And I like, I like process that for 1:23:31.040 --> 1:23:33.040 a couple of weeks because I've always thought of us 1:23:33.080 --> 1:23:34.760 as being the next level. You know, we want to 1:23:34.760 --> 1:23:37.080 be the Jones is that the people are keeping up with. 1:23:38.120 --> 1:23:41.200 And you know, it's not just easy to say, Okay, 1:23:41.200 --> 1:23:43.160 we're gonna do this, We're gonna do that. You can't 1:23:43.160 --> 1:23:47.400 control competitive outcomes or TV contracts are set. So how 1:23:47.400 --> 1:23:50.679 do you think in a big picture way about the SEC? 1:23:50.840 --> 1:23:56.000 And that became every waking moment where I wasn't on 1:23:56.120 --> 1:23:59.360 the job, was me with an orange note book talking 1:23:59.360 --> 1:24:03.320 to people thinking about ideas. You know, where my kind 1:24:03.320 --> 1:24:06.280 of pitch came was literally on a Southwest airlized flight, 1:24:06.320 --> 1:24:09.400 writing ideas out on napkins because I forgot my arms notebook. 1:24:10.200 --> 1:24:13.280 Um that eventually formed the presentation I made during the 1:24:13.320 --> 1:24:17.120 interview process. And you see on our championship sign and 1:24:17.280 --> 1:24:19.760 some of the words about scholars, champions and leaders just 1:24:19.840 --> 1:24:22.719 conveying that here's what we're trying to do as a league. 1:24:23.439 --> 1:24:24.960 Uh and if we do it well, we're going to 1:24:25.040 --> 1:24:29.240 have TV contracts and interest in viewership and and fans 1:24:29.240 --> 1:24:33.280 attending games. Um So that that probably I just veered 1:24:33.320 --> 1:24:36.800 from the essence of the question, Clay, But that's it 1:24:37.000 --> 1:24:41.200 was a year of you know, concern for a friend 1:24:41.320 --> 1:24:47.240 first and foremost, but also recognition that, Okay, here's your opportunity. 1:24:47.800 --> 1:24:50.439 You don't want to go into that interview wondering if 1:24:50.439 --> 1:24:53.720 I've done everything I could to prepare and uh so 1:24:53.840 --> 1:24:57.000 I spent a lot of time thinking, preparing for what 1:24:57.160 --> 1:25:00.000 might be next. Where were you when you found out 1:25:00.160 --> 1:25:03.880 that you got the job? I was in Nashville, Um 1:25:04.360 --> 1:25:08.320 there were I went through three interviews in person interviews, 1:25:08.320 --> 1:25:10.720 the last with all of our presidents and chancellors. It 1:25:10.800 --> 1:25:15.639 was at the formal residence of the Vanderbilt chancellor. Uh. 1:25:15.680 --> 1:25:17.640 You know, they have to have a place that that 1:25:17.800 --> 1:25:21.400 is you know, hospitality related all that. So I went 1:25:21.439 --> 1:25:24.519 to an interview on a Thursday morning at like at 1:25:24.520 --> 1:25:28.639 eight o'clock for they grill you. Anybody can ask any question. 1:25:28.720 --> 1:25:31.439 Is it structured? What's that process? Like? Yeah, I was saying, 1:25:31.840 --> 1:25:33.960 you know, they probably know. I was sitting on a 1:25:34.000 --> 1:25:37.040 couch and and everybody got to ask questions one after 1:25:37.120 --> 1:25:40.160 the other, and the couch it was an older couch. 1:25:40.200 --> 1:25:42.120 I remember sitting up high. I have a picture on 1:25:42.160 --> 1:25:46.519 my phone and their fourteen presidents and chancellors on chairs 1:25:46.640 --> 1:25:49.439 surrounding me in a in a semi circle. And it 1:25:49.520 --> 1:25:52.280 was kind of one question after another. And then we 1:25:52.400 --> 1:25:55.519 had breakfast together where there's more questions in a you know, 1:25:55.600 --> 1:25:57.799 a little bit less formal setting. And then I left. 1:25:58.400 --> 1:26:02.360 I went back to the Renaissance downtown and uh, I 1:26:02.439 --> 1:26:05.760 was kind of processing what had just happened. And I 1:26:05.880 --> 1:26:07.960 went into a meeting because I had to go back 1:26:08.000 --> 1:26:11.839 at noon for the formal regular meeting of our presidents 1:26:11.840 --> 1:26:14.240 and chancellors. So it's about ten thirty I go back. 1:26:14.280 --> 1:26:18.160 I walk in. Mike text me what's going on? And uh, 1:26:18.360 --> 1:26:20.519 I said, hey, I'm back in the hotel, like where 1:26:20.560 --> 1:26:22.639 are you? And so he's asking me questions. I walked 1:26:22.640 --> 1:26:25.800 into this room of colleagues. People kind of knew what 1:26:25.840 --> 1:26:27.880 was going on, but they did a really good job 1:26:27.960 --> 1:26:32.040 our presidents of keeping matters confidential. And I felt like 1:26:32.080 --> 1:26:35.280 dead man walking, or like what's what's happening, And so 1:26:35.479 --> 1:26:37.280 I kind of assumed if it was me, it would 1:26:37.320 --> 1:26:40.479 happen quickly and I'd get a phone call, and then 1:26:40.560 --> 1:26:43.559 like an hour goes by and there's no phone call, like, wow, 1:26:43.600 --> 1:26:46.880 this is this is interesting. I then had to get 1:26:46.920 --> 1:26:50.400 back in a car and ride back out to the 1:26:50.439 --> 1:26:53.840 same location for our formal, regular business meeting of a 1:26:53.920 --> 1:26:59.120 president's and chancellors hadn't heard a think, and Mike was 1:26:59.160 --> 1:27:03.920 in the passengers seat and his executive assistant now who 1:27:03.920 --> 1:27:06.760 works as my executive assistant, was driving, and I'm in 1:27:06.800 --> 1:27:08.479 the back and in a pretty good mood. I'm like, hey, 1:27:08.479 --> 1:27:10.479 I did the best I could. We'll see what happens. 1:27:10.479 --> 1:27:13.000 And I kind of went on a downward spiral of man, 1:27:13.040 --> 1:27:15.080 if I don't get this, you know what's going to happen. 1:27:15.120 --> 1:27:17.280 I'm gonna go on the next part of my career, 1:27:17.439 --> 1:27:21.120 and like the dark clouds started to hover. And Claire 1:27:21.160 --> 1:27:24.559 I told that story like six months later. Her Vinson, 1:27:24.600 --> 1:27:27.840 our Associate Commissioner for Communication, said how I was in 1:27:27.840 --> 1:27:30.679 the back seat with you and I'm like, seriously, you were. 1:27:31.200 --> 1:27:33.160 He's like, yeah, I wrote in that same car out 1:27:33.200 --> 1:27:35.479 to that meeting, like her, but I don't remember you 1:27:35.560 --> 1:27:39.000 being there at all on that ride because your mind 1:27:39.080 --> 1:27:41.080 just kind of takes over. And so we pull up. 1:27:41.439 --> 1:27:44.679 I looked at Catherine, who would helped administratively with the search. 1:27:44.720 --> 1:27:47.559 I said, what am I supposed to do? And she said, 1:27:47.800 --> 1:27:49.639 I don't know, And so it's one of those moments 1:27:49.640 --> 1:27:51.200 where you decide who you are, and I said, you 1:27:51.200 --> 1:27:53.120 know what, I did the best I could. I walked 1:27:53.200 --> 1:27:56.160 up the stairs with my head held high, and Nick's 1:27:56.200 --> 1:27:58.280 eppos comes out and says, Greg, come with me and 1:27:58.280 --> 1:28:00.720 brings me in a side room with a couple of 1:28:00.760 --> 1:28:04.320 other presidents and chancellors. I sit down and he says, congratulations, 1:28:04.320 --> 1:28:06.600 we want you to be our next commissioner, and like 1:28:07.160 --> 1:28:10.560 the world changed, and he kind of talked about structure 1:28:10.600 --> 1:28:12.800 of agreement, and then he said, what do you think? 1:28:13.280 --> 1:28:16.080 And the first thing I said was I just need 1:28:16.120 --> 1:28:18.960 a moment to tie my shoe. My shoe had come untied, 1:28:19.479 --> 1:28:21.599 and I had some things that I wanted to talk through, 1:28:21.640 --> 1:28:24.240 but I had needed to stop the world from spinning 1:28:24.280 --> 1:28:27.600 as quickly as they had become spinning. So did you 1:28:27.720 --> 1:28:30.240 think did you think they might tell you that you 1:28:30.320 --> 1:28:32.160 weren't going to get the job. When they pulled you 1:28:32.200 --> 1:28:34.640 into the side room, then yeah, I walked down the 1:28:34.680 --> 1:28:37.920 hallway with no idea what was about to happen. Um, 1:28:37.960 --> 1:28:43.000 and I credit it wasn't any fun, but um, it 1:28:43.120 --> 1:28:47.479 was a very thorough search. I mean it was interviewed 1:28:47.520 --> 1:28:51.400 other people that day too, sure as there were other finalists. 1:28:51.520 --> 1:28:56.200 I know. Yeah, it was you know, the Jet Hughes 1:28:56.320 --> 1:28:59.160 and and it was just involved in the big ten search. 1:28:59.240 --> 1:29:02.360 Jed led this search for corn Ferry, and that's a 1:29:02.400 --> 1:29:05.280 big time company and they involve all kinds of people. 1:29:05.280 --> 1:29:07.880 That's their jobs. So and that's what our presidents and 1:29:07.960 --> 1:29:12.519 chancellors wanted for their consideration. So how much so I 1:29:12.520 --> 1:29:15.400 remember talking to you soon after you got that um, 1:29:15.479 --> 1:29:19.120 and you said, almost immediately as you rise up to 1:29:19.160 --> 1:29:22.360 that level, you realize how much difference there was between 1:29:22.400 --> 1:29:25.120 being the number two guy and being the number one guy. 1:29:25.320 --> 1:29:27.360 You know, in other words, let's say your number two 1:29:27.360 --> 1:29:30.200 to Mike Slide at that point that the distance between 1:29:30.280 --> 1:29:32.680 number one and number two geographically may not have been 1:29:32.800 --> 1:29:35.000 very much in terms of your office and moving down 1:29:35.000 --> 1:29:37.920 the hall and everything else, but how much difference was 1:29:38.000 --> 1:29:41.120 there and how much difference did you suddenly have. I 1:29:41.120 --> 1:29:43.760 feel like, this is a long question, but you don't 1:29:43.800 --> 1:29:45.760 know what it's like to be a parent until you 1:29:45.800 --> 1:29:47.880 actually become a parent, and then you go back and 1:29:47.920 --> 1:29:49.960 you tell your own parents, like, you know what, you 1:29:49.960 --> 1:29:51.680 guys did a pretty good job, right, I mean, that's 1:29:51.720 --> 1:29:54.439 the ideal scenario. But you always kind of know what 1:29:54.560 --> 1:29:57.680 the process of being a kid is like. Could you 1:29:57.760 --> 1:30:00.680 have prepared what was it like to suddenly come the 1:30:00.920 --> 1:30:07.559 commissioner of the sec um? Yeah. So, as I gather 1:30:07.720 --> 1:30:12.519 thoughts and really answering that question, Mark Ricks as he 1:30:12.720 --> 1:30:17.240 left Georgia made an observation that's very simple. He says, 1:30:17.240 --> 1:30:18.519 you don't know what it's like to sit in the 1:30:18.640 --> 1:30:22.360 chair until you sit in the chair. And and that's 1:30:22.400 --> 1:30:25.120 the answer to your question, which is I was fifty 1:30:25.200 --> 1:30:29.479 yards from this this office as executive Associate Commissioner, but 1:30:29.479 --> 1:30:33.000 I was fifty thous miles away as far as rigor 1:30:33.120 --> 1:30:36.680 and focus and pressure and expectations. And I was as 1:30:36.760 --> 1:30:38.680 close to Mike as you could be on a day 1:30:38.680 --> 1:30:42.160 to day basis, but still didn't have the level of 1:30:42.240 --> 1:30:44.280 understanding of what it's really like. And you don't have 1:30:44.400 --> 1:30:47.200 that until you're in it. The advantage that I had 1:30:47.280 --> 1:30:52.240 for myself is a lot of what happened starting June one, 1:30:52.320 --> 1:30:55.559 where people come to you with ideas and then you 1:30:55.640 --> 1:30:58.080 have to make a decision is mentally I lived through 1:30:58.120 --> 1:31:01.320 that in the Southland conference. I'm off Broadway. I can 1:31:01.400 --> 1:31:04.719 make decisions that maybe could be highly criticized. They weren't 1:31:04.760 --> 1:31:09.000 because there just wasn't the visibility. But the mental process 1:31:09.120 --> 1:31:12.160 of listening to input and then making a decision is 1:31:12.320 --> 1:31:17.000 very different from being an advisor. And that's what happens 1:31:17.000 --> 1:31:20.960 when you go from to our associate commissioner to commissioner, 1:31:21.000 --> 1:31:23.120 as you went from being an advisor to being the 1:31:23.160 --> 1:31:28.240 decision maker and Clay, that's just that's a world world 1:31:28.320 --> 1:31:31.360 of difference. And you know, for me, we had some 1:31:31.439 --> 1:31:34.040 TV allocations that hit me in the first week. The 1:31:34.120 --> 1:31:38.479 second week there is um the tragic shooting in Charleston, 1:31:38.520 --> 1:31:41.800 South Carolina, and a flood of questions here about the 1:31:41.840 --> 1:31:45.920 Confederate battle flag display in South Carolina and the state 1:31:45.960 --> 1:31:48.480 flag of Mississippi. And then what are you gonna say publicly? 1:31:48.880 --> 1:31:51.320 You know, there's not a master's class that prepares you 1:31:51.439 --> 1:31:54.200 for those experiences, and those are like two of the 1:31:54.280 --> 1:31:59.240 quick ones. But then budget decisions personnel decisions. Um, you 1:31:59.240 --> 1:32:01.240 can have a play in, which is what I worked on. 1:32:01.840 --> 1:32:04.120 But then you know, it's kind of the Mike Tyson. 1:32:04.120 --> 1:32:06.080 Everybody has a plan, utility get punched in the face. 1:32:06.760 --> 1:32:08.599 And I'm going to do all this in the first year, 1:32:08.640 --> 1:32:10.479 and I probably got through half of what I thought 1:32:10.479 --> 1:32:13.479 i'd get through, just because you know, the day to 1:32:13.560 --> 1:32:16.040 day takes over as well. Be sure to catch live 1:32:16.200 --> 1:32:19.080 editions about kick the Coverage with Clay Travis week days 1:32:19.120 --> 1:32:22.400 at six am Eastern three am Pacific. We're talking to 1:32:22.520 --> 1:32:25.439 SEC Commissioner Greg Sanky. You can follow him on Twitter 1:32:25.520 --> 1:32:27.839 at Greg Sanky. This is Wins and Lost his podcast 1:32:27.920 --> 1:32:31.240 with Clay Travis. So you get the job. Um, and 1:32:31.720 --> 1:32:34.519 you are and and I'm fortunate to know you. I 1:32:34.520 --> 1:32:37.400 think pretty well. You're forward thinking, right, You're trying to 1:32:37.439 --> 1:32:39.400 think about not just the things that are going on 1:32:39.560 --> 1:32:41.880 right now, but also the things that might come in 1:32:41.920 --> 1:32:44.439 the future. And I remember having conversations when I wrote 1:32:44.439 --> 1:32:47.160 and talked some with Mike's Live about how he sort 1:32:47.160 --> 1:32:49.559 of viewed the SEC as a public trust right. You're 1:32:49.560 --> 1:32:51.960 trying to think about things that are going to leave 1:32:52.000 --> 1:32:54.439 that conference in better shape in the years and decades 1:32:54.479 --> 1:32:58.639 ahead than it was when when you took over. How 1:32:58.720 --> 1:33:01.120 much time now do you spend thinking about the day 1:33:01.160 --> 1:33:05.880 to day mechanics of running a conference versus decisions now 1:33:05.920 --> 1:33:07.400 that you want to make that are going to be 1:33:07.439 --> 1:33:09.400 putting the conference in a better shape five to ten 1:33:09.479 --> 1:33:11.720 years in the future. What on a day to day 1:33:11.720 --> 1:33:15.960 basis now? What is your focus? It's more down the road. 1:33:16.000 --> 1:33:20.439 There's always going to be operational elements UM in in 1:33:20.479 --> 1:33:25.120 a leadership kind of chief executive officer position. My first summer, 1:33:25.240 --> 1:33:27.200 one of the things I was encouraged to do by 1:33:27.200 --> 1:33:30.880 our presidents and chancellors is to go engage with the 1:33:31.000 --> 1:33:35.120 leadership consulting program of some sort, and I ended up 1:33:35.160 --> 1:33:40.679 with Deloitte Consulting has a CEO transition program that usually 1:33:40.760 --> 1:33:43.559 is about fortune five CEO, but it's about clarity of 1:33:43.560 --> 1:33:47.720 your vision focus UM And part of that question was 1:33:47.760 --> 1:33:50.639 really what they asked me, which is how much time 1:33:50.680 --> 1:33:55.680 do you spend on strategy and operations versus vision and 1:33:55.760 --> 1:33:59.559 planning and the challenges to move to vision and planning, 1:33:59.600 --> 1:34:04.479 so you're always looking you're looking forward, and when you're 1:34:04.520 --> 1:34:09.320 an internal candidate, you've been dealing with operations. Right for 1:34:09.680 --> 1:34:12.599 you know years and you have to move away from that. Well, 1:34:12.600 --> 1:34:14.760 that takes a little bit of time. If you're an 1:34:14.800 --> 1:34:17.840 external person, you know nothing about the operations, so you're 1:34:17.920 --> 1:34:20.960 learning that and you may even have CEO experience. So 1:34:21.320 --> 1:34:24.439 I don't. I actually like the internal part because I 1:34:24.439 --> 1:34:27.479 could get after some of the immediate needs as opposed 1:34:27.479 --> 1:34:30.960 to having to figure it out for a couple of years. UM. 1:34:31.000 --> 1:34:34.960 I spend more time now looking down the road. Uh, 1:34:35.000 --> 1:34:38.800 you know five years and I've spent time after my 1:34:38.960 --> 1:34:42.840 first or second year trying to engage in more learning 1:34:42.920 --> 1:34:45.360 about what is the future really look like? Be a 1:34:45.520 --> 1:34:51.200 media be it trying to understand litigation outcomes, be at 1:34:51.840 --> 1:34:57.960 what's happening in higher education enrollment patterns, economically in our region, UM. 1:34:58.040 --> 1:35:04.120 You know, understanding chan ages and culture around media consumption 1:35:04.800 --> 1:35:08.720 of an attendance. UM. And you know, there are a 1:35:08.760 --> 1:35:11.519 set of issues that just in the last four years 1:35:12.040 --> 1:35:16.400 looked very different than they did again June one, when 1:35:16.439 --> 1:35:19.360 I started my first day in this role. And you 1:35:20.120 --> 1:35:22.080 can't spend your day just trying to figure out your 1:35:22.160 --> 1:35:26.000 arc chart. UM, you better be thinking about what it 1:35:26.120 --> 1:35:28.720 is that's around the corner, even though we can't see it. 1:35:29.160 --> 1:35:32.679 One of those that's been wildly successful is the SEC network. 1:35:32.840 --> 1:35:34.559 I mean, you guys hit it out of the park 1:35:34.680 --> 1:35:37.839 on the launch. You guys in ESPN put it together 1:35:38.000 --> 1:35:40.360 about as well as it possibly could have gone. No 1:35:40.439 --> 1:35:44.240 one missed any games, there was no disruption in the 1:35:44.360 --> 1:35:46.880 SEC fan base. You thought you might have to fight 1:35:46.920 --> 1:35:48.760 a battle, but it ended up that you just had 1:35:48.800 --> 1:35:51.960 to line up and execute a great business plan. But 1:35:52.240 --> 1:35:55.720 the challenge that you have now is SEC network has 1:35:55.760 --> 1:35:59.080 got cord cutting issues, just like ESPN and FS one 1:35:59.160 --> 1:36:03.759 and NBC Sports Network and every other cable channel out there. Now, 1:36:03.840 --> 1:36:07.360 are you concerned at all about the cable bundle in 1:36:07.400 --> 1:36:09.120 a way that maybe you didn't think you would have 1:36:09.160 --> 1:36:14.280 had to be. I don't know. I'm attentive to the 1:36:14.360 --> 1:36:18.080 cable bundle, but there are still advantages that seem to 1:36:18.120 --> 1:36:23.639 be inherent. Um, but there's there's there's clearly some point 1:36:23.640 --> 1:36:28.599 out there, this tipping point, it seems, where there's so 1:36:28.720 --> 1:36:33.960 much either direct consumer or skinny bundle or these new 1:36:34.000 --> 1:36:38.559 providers and the in and out ability that it raises 1:36:38.640 --> 1:36:41.840 the issue I think first of connection to your fan base. 1:36:42.439 --> 1:36:44.600 I think even more than content, the content has to 1:36:44.640 --> 1:36:49.280 be great. Live events are important, but keeping our our 1:36:49.360 --> 1:36:53.519 conference relevant, making sure our fans are a part of 1:36:53.520 --> 1:36:56.479 what we do and can access our games and our events. 1:36:56.800 --> 1:36:59.280 I think all of that's important to kind of feed 1:36:59.720 --> 1:37:03.479 what we've built. And sure there are changing dynamics around 1:37:04.120 --> 1:37:08.920 media and television, but you know, there's a big picture 1:37:09.000 --> 1:37:12.000 of if people are connected to what we do and 1:37:12.040 --> 1:37:16.120 it's compelling and and it's in the competition is at 1:37:16.120 --> 1:37:19.160 a high, high level, it continues to attract people. Now, 1:37:19.200 --> 1:37:23.840 how that's delivered is part of the execution where we 1:37:23.880 --> 1:37:27.639 need great partners like we've had executing well. And you've 1:37:27.640 --> 1:37:29.960 got ESPN as a great partner that's lined up for 1:37:30.040 --> 1:37:33.280 a long time with the SEC Network, the SEC Game 1:37:33.320 --> 1:37:36.479 of the Week on CBS has turned into a also 1:37:36.640 --> 1:37:40.320 wildly popular television platform. Um, and you guys have been 1:37:40.360 --> 1:37:43.280 with CBS for a long time. It's I think that 1:37:43.320 --> 1:37:46.680 deal is up. You'll know better than me in Ish 1:37:47.680 --> 1:37:50.920 football season, I think, do you already now we're talking 1:37:50.960 --> 1:37:52.840 and I hope people are still listening to this year's 1:37:52.840 --> 1:37:55.679 from now, but it's twenty nineteen. Now do you look 1:37:55.720 --> 1:37:59.120 ahead and already start planning out what might make sense there? 1:37:59.160 --> 1:38:01.479 Do you think about direct a consumer on your Game 1:38:01.479 --> 1:38:04.360 of the Week, your SEC Championship game. Is that one 1:38:04.400 --> 1:38:06.479 of the things that you would explore as part of 1:38:06.479 --> 1:38:10.960 that process kind of looking forward, I have a long 1:38:11.080 --> 1:38:16.880 view of that next opportunity, so that that CBS relationship 1:38:17.000 --> 1:38:20.400 has been enormously important to the Southeastern Conference and can 1:38:20.439 --> 1:38:24.479 continue to be. We do have five more full seasons 1:38:24.520 --> 1:38:31.400 remaining UM and appreciate that relationship. But to your earlier question, 1:38:31.640 --> 1:38:35.240 I look out in the future, UH, and that's why 1:38:35.320 --> 1:38:38.760 we engaged a media advisor, so Chuck Gerber, who did 1:38:38.800 --> 1:38:42.200 great work for us in our prior negotiations and oh 1:38:42.200 --> 1:38:44.599 eight and the launch of the SEC network. We lost 1:38:44.680 --> 1:38:48.320 Chuck in November of two thousand fifteen, so we've needed, 1:38:48.840 --> 1:38:52.640 UH someone to fill that advisory role. I don't have 1:38:52.720 --> 1:38:57.600 anything imminent, but I want to be thinking again long term, 1:38:57.640 --> 1:39:01.519 how does the industry change? Who who was involved in 1:39:01.520 --> 1:39:05.320 in in negotiations right now? That understands the business and 1:39:05.360 --> 1:39:09.040 that's why UH. In November of last year, we announced 1:39:09.040 --> 1:39:12.200 a relationship with Evolution Media and c A Television to 1:39:12.280 --> 1:39:15.720 help us in that thinking of preparation. But that's very 1:39:15.800 --> 1:39:19.120 much a long view of the opportunity that Hey, it 1:39:19.120 --> 1:39:21.320 will be out there at some point in the next 1:39:21.360 --> 1:39:23.400 five years, and we want to make sure we're as 1:39:23.439 --> 1:39:25.920 well prepared as anyone. One of the things I'm sure 1:39:25.960 --> 1:39:28.799 that's impressed you about being the SEC Commissioner is suddenly, 1:39:28.840 --> 1:39:32.040 if you didn't already know, the number of people and 1:39:32.120 --> 1:39:34.320 meetings you can get in for. And I know you've met, 1:39:34.360 --> 1:39:36.839 for instance, with Tim Cook, who's a big Auburn supporter, 1:39:37.200 --> 1:39:39.720 who were some of the names and and people that 1:39:39.760 --> 1:39:43.719 you have met who have SEC alumni relationships who cared 1:39:43.760 --> 1:39:48.719 deeply about the results of you know, college conference football, basketball, baseball, 1:39:48.800 --> 1:39:51.920 whatever it may be. Uh that that may be surprised you, 1:39:52.120 --> 1:39:54.120 And uh, I imagine it's got to be a little 1:39:54.120 --> 1:39:56.240 bit crazy to walk in to meet with a guy 1:39:56.280 --> 1:39:58.679 like Tim Cook, who's been in charge of a trillion 1:39:58.680 --> 1:40:01.479 dollar company, and you know, he's caring about how Auburn 1:40:01.560 --> 1:40:03.680 football is going to go, which I think just kind 1:40:03.720 --> 1:40:07.200 of speaks to the fabric with which SEC football connects, 1:40:07.280 --> 1:40:10.760 even after people may not necessarily be that connected to 1:40:10.800 --> 1:40:13.080 their alma mater anymore. Right, it really is the tie 1:40:13.120 --> 1:40:16.559 that binds forever. Yeah, it is. And and I've I've 1:40:16.640 --> 1:40:19.040 met him a number of times when I had an 1:40:19.040 --> 1:40:21.000 opportunity for one on one. I said, do you like 1:40:21.120 --> 1:40:22.680 this was in the summer. I said, do you know 1:40:22.880 --> 1:40:25.120 that you'll be able to watch Auburn football games on 1:40:25.160 --> 1:40:27.000 the phone. I was like, Oh yeah, it's like he 1:40:27.160 --> 1:40:31.640 plans around that to make ten of it. Wasn't. It's 1:40:31.720 --> 1:40:34.160 a clear passion, which is great. That's part of the 1:40:34.520 --> 1:40:38.719 It just means more attitude. We've communicated. You know, Charlie 1:40:38.840 --> 1:40:42.960 Ergan who had the dish as a Tennessee alone and uh, 1:40:43.280 --> 1:40:46.880 just fascinating to talk to. And really I've taken time 1:40:46.920 --> 1:40:49.599 to meet with as many immedia leaders as I can 1:40:50.520 --> 1:40:53.559 UM and their schedules don't work, and even whether their 1:40:53.560 --> 1:40:55.840 alums or not, I'm amazed at the number who might 1:40:55.880 --> 1:40:58.720 not be alums, wh whose children have attended one or 1:40:58.760 --> 1:41:02.600 more of our universities. UM, but they're all conversant. You 1:41:02.600 --> 1:41:05.560 can say like what are we doing right in and 1:41:06.120 --> 1:41:09.240 in the SEC network? And you know everyone talks about 1:41:09.360 --> 1:41:12.120 SEC nation on Saturday mornings. Where you've got this flavor 1:41:12.200 --> 1:41:16.640 of who we are and that's the attachment UM to 1:41:17.120 --> 1:41:20.240 the Southeastern Conference. UM. I was sharing earlier today with 1:41:20.280 --> 1:41:25.639 a friend that I'll meet senators in Congressional representatives and games. 1:41:26.040 --> 1:41:28.639 And I've literally had conversations of Hey, if you're ever 1:41:28.680 --> 1:41:30.759 in d C, I'd love to have dinner. They're saying 1:41:30.760 --> 1:41:33.519 this to me. I'm like, yeah, you know, you're busy 1:41:33.640 --> 1:41:36.120 and I don't want to impose, And I said, no, no, 1:41:36.200 --> 1:41:37.960 I would love to have dinner with you and talk 1:41:38.040 --> 1:41:41.400 about your work. Um. And I think that's maybe an 1:41:41.439 --> 1:41:46.400 illustration of it's this uh, it's this passion that it 1:41:46.560 --> 1:41:49.479 is generally a very healthy passion that provides a little 1:41:49.520 --> 1:41:52.640 bit of diversion and attachment to home, to something that 1:41:52.760 --> 1:41:56.639 that means, uh, something special from a time in their 1:41:56.680 --> 1:41:59.800 life or from someone, uh you know, a parent who 1:41:59.800 --> 1:42:02.280 may be on a lum or, or just that that 1:42:02.479 --> 1:42:04.920 was the university and its team that was kind of 1:42:04.920 --> 1:42:08.360 the city on a hill to which everybody paid attention 1:42:08.360 --> 1:42:11.240 in their youth. So there are any number of those. 1:42:11.280 --> 1:42:13.760 I'm probably ill equipped to run down the list, or 1:42:13.760 --> 1:42:17.400 somebody made me sign a confidentiality. I'm not kidding about 1:42:17.439 --> 1:42:20.400 the ladder, all right. So that is impressive in and 1:42:20.439 --> 1:42:23.320 of itself. Also stepping up from the number two to 1:42:23.479 --> 1:42:26.840 number one seat, though, will put your own life into 1:42:26.840 --> 1:42:29.479 the public eye in a way that it was never 1:42:29.760 --> 1:42:31.559 when you're number two, Right when you go up to 1:42:31.680 --> 1:42:34.880 number one, suddenly you're the guy who James Carville has 1:42:34.880 --> 1:42:38.120 taken shots at on college game day, or you're the 1:42:38.120 --> 1:42:41.760 guy who replaces Mike Slive's name in any number of 1:42:41.800 --> 1:42:45.519 message boards when people are complaining about a subtle change 1:42:45.560 --> 1:42:48.759 that they think impacts the competitive spirit of the conference 1:42:48.840 --> 1:42:52.000 or or everything else. How has that felt to you 1:42:52.280 --> 1:42:53.760 to go from I mean, I know you had a 1:42:53.800 --> 1:42:56.640 public job for people who are in the industry, but 1:42:56.720 --> 1:42:59.760 now you have a public, public job where people know 1:42:59.840 --> 1:43:02.120 you name and know what you do and holds you 1:43:02.160 --> 1:43:04.160 accountable for so many things on a day to day 1:43:04.200 --> 1:43:06.720 basis that you might have been involved in before, but 1:43:06.760 --> 1:43:10.280 you certainly weren't considered responsible for. Yeah, you know, I 1:43:10.360 --> 1:43:14.840 had a conversation with Roger Goodell where we were just 1:43:14.880 --> 1:43:17.920 talking about ficiating, and he said, you know, everybody needs 1:43:17.920 --> 1:43:22.920 somebody to blame, and unfortunately that becomes us in these roles. 1:43:23.240 --> 1:43:26.200 And you know what I found is I'm accountable not 1:43:26.320 --> 1:43:28.639 so much for what I do, but for what everybody 1:43:28.640 --> 1:43:32.559 around me does. But somebody's gonna point the finger. And 1:43:32.640 --> 1:43:38.000 you're at a leadership level where you assume responsibility, and 1:43:38.040 --> 1:43:40.320 I don't think anyone can step into it and really 1:43:40.400 --> 1:43:43.960 understand the level of attention and scrutiny. UM. And there's 1:43:44.000 --> 1:43:46.519 good and bad to that. You know, some of the 1:43:46.560 --> 1:43:49.120 things that happened in social media are kind of past 1:43:49.200 --> 1:43:53.439 disturbing um. And you know, some of the accusations just 1:43:53.479 --> 1:43:56.880 have no anchor and reality. But people want to communicate 1:43:56.880 --> 1:44:01.080 their frustrations or perceptions in the Publick Brown, I think 1:44:02.560 --> 1:44:05.840 of the interaction I have has been positive, in fact, 1:44:06.080 --> 1:44:08.400 as in our basketball tournament this year, and I had 1:44:08.439 --> 1:44:11.360 a graduate of one of our universities who grabs my 1:44:11.520 --> 1:44:14.479 arm and says I'm from and I'm like, oh no, 1:44:14.640 --> 1:44:18.080 here we go, and uh, he says, I just want 1:44:18.120 --> 1:44:19.640 you to know that there are a lot of us 1:44:19.680 --> 1:44:22.760 out here who are reasonable people and respectfully the job 1:44:22.920 --> 1:44:24.840 that's in front of you and how you how you 1:44:24.920 --> 1:44:26.720 handle And I said, you know what, you have no 1:44:27.080 --> 1:44:31.719 idea how incredibly kind that is. Because what people don't 1:44:31.760 --> 1:44:36.880 see UM in these leadership roles is that we are 1:44:37.560 --> 1:44:42.400 human beings making informed decisions. But we're all going to 1:44:42.479 --> 1:44:46.200 do the best we can. And uh, maybe we don't 1:44:46.280 --> 1:44:48.600 make the perfect decision, but it may have been the 1:44:48.640 --> 1:44:53.000 best decision given the circumstances. That then creates perceptions and 1:44:53.080 --> 1:44:56.439 everybody has emotion and feelings around it, which is great. 1:44:57.360 --> 1:45:02.200 But fundamentally we're committed to to acting with integrity and 1:45:02.320 --> 1:45:06.320 making the best informed decisions as possible. And sometimes that 1:45:06.360 --> 1:45:10.840 creates accountability. Sometimes that creates headaches and hardships, but it's 1:45:10.920 --> 1:45:13.560 done in a way that continues to advance the conference. 1:45:14.080 --> 1:45:18.880 That scrutiny should exist and will always exist, and and 1:45:18.960 --> 1:45:20.880 part of the job is to make sure you've got 1:45:20.960 --> 1:45:24.840 kind of a healthy mental outlook um from which you 1:45:24.920 --> 1:45:29.400 can can manage those pressures and whatever commentary may accompany 1:45:29.439 --> 1:45:32.519 those pressures. Do you listen to sports talker radio? Do 1:45:32.640 --> 1:45:35.880 you read ever a message board? What is your media 1:45:35.920 --> 1:45:39.080 consumption habit to kind of keep a pulse on what 1:45:39.640 --> 1:45:42.799 your fan base, meaning, you know, the larger SEC region 1:45:42.920 --> 1:45:45.200 might be thinking, not necessarily about you, but about the 1:45:45.240 --> 1:45:47.400 conference at all. How do you stay at tune? You know, 1:45:47.400 --> 1:45:49.759 they talk about how you know, when you become president, 1:45:49.800 --> 1:45:52.000 you're in the White House bubble and it's really hard 1:45:52.080 --> 1:45:54.840 to figure out what the real world is like. How 1:45:54.840 --> 1:45:57.840 do you maintain your connection to the quote unquote real 1:45:57.880 --> 1:46:02.400 world that is your constituency there. I think I've been 1:46:02.439 --> 1:46:05.439 pretty active and I'm certainly not not hiding from anyone, 1:46:05.479 --> 1:46:07.439 whether it's going to games and you're going to do 1:46:07.520 --> 1:46:10.200 that in your own bubble. But I'll walk through a 1:46:10.200 --> 1:46:12.840 crowd and say hello. So I mean that's a low 1:46:12.920 --> 1:46:16.520 level connection where you know it's one of the adjustments 1:46:16.600 --> 1:46:18.840 is to walk down a street or walk through an 1:46:18.880 --> 1:46:22.880 airport Mutch, People's heads turn as you walk past. Because 1:46:22.920 --> 1:46:26.920 I spent fifty years plus of my life where nobody 1:46:26.960 --> 1:46:29.400 knowing who I was except a friend I might see 1:46:29.439 --> 1:46:35.600 in the airport. And now I'll regularly have conversations while traveling. Um, 1:46:35.640 --> 1:46:38.240 so that's kind of a low level piece. I'm a 1:46:38.360 --> 1:46:40.920 ten of every day, so I I start pretty early, 1:46:41.560 --> 1:46:44.280 and my media consumption is from three or four different 1:46:44.280 --> 1:46:48.719 clipping services around higher education in college sports to see 1:46:48.760 --> 1:46:52.880 what's happening. I do listen to sports radio to a 1:46:52.880 --> 1:46:57.080 certain extent, depending where I'm traveling to. I'll listen uh 1:46:57.280 --> 1:47:01.200 the ESP and you radio there's a show on called 1:47:01.200 --> 1:47:03.800 out kicked the coverage um that From time to time. 1:47:04.080 --> 1:47:06.880 I'll travel too, but you're going to cover different things, 1:47:06.880 --> 1:47:11.479 so you know I'm going to consume some national stuff, um, 1:47:11.520 --> 1:47:14.680 and then you have to put that aside too. So 1:47:14.920 --> 1:47:18.840 I think there's this delicate balance between understanding what what's 1:47:18.880 --> 1:47:22.880 on people's minds and Herberman sent and our communications area 1:47:22.920 --> 1:47:26.040 and his staff will keep me informed of things. I'm 1:47:26.080 --> 1:47:28.320 the only one of the five commissioners who actually has 1:47:28.360 --> 1:47:38.200 an active Twitter account, so uh not not on game days, um, 1:47:38.240 --> 1:47:42.840 just because it's it's it's it's a strange universe. Yeah. 1:47:42.960 --> 1:47:45.160 I was going to say something a little bit more pleasant, 1:47:45.240 --> 1:47:49.719 but you know, the language that the accusations just aren't 1:47:49.720 --> 1:47:52.080 anchored in reality. In fact, there was something I saw 1:47:52.200 --> 1:47:55.040 yesterday about you know, no penalty got called on this 1:47:55.160 --> 1:47:57.960 play and this is your bias, and wanted to tweet back, 1:47:58.560 --> 1:48:01.280 Actually there was a penalty hall on the plane and 1:48:01.560 --> 1:48:04.040 all the young man wasn't ejected, he was withheld from 1:48:04.080 --> 1:48:07.080 the next game. But if I enter that prey, you 1:48:07.160 --> 1:48:10.960 never get back out, and and so I'll usually just 1:48:11.120 --> 1:48:14.759 look and see what's there and then move on pretty quickly, 1:48:14.840 --> 1:48:18.120 because you know the notion that somebody with twenty six followers, 1:48:18.160 --> 1:48:22.080 who's you live it right, who's got anonymous name and 1:48:22.280 --> 1:48:27.000 is calling you gutless, her lacking courage, like I had 1:48:27.040 --> 1:48:28.960 that this spring. It was around a baseball week and 1:48:29.040 --> 1:48:31.439 I looked and it's like, you lack courage with you 1:48:31.479 --> 1:48:33.080 don't have any courage to do this for that And 1:48:33.080 --> 1:48:35.599 I'm like, wait, You've got twenty six followers and your 1:48:36.280 --> 1:48:39.080 your your Twitter handle is a bunch of vowels. So 1:48:39.360 --> 1:48:42.840 I think that's like lacking courage to accuse people publicly 1:48:42.880 --> 1:48:45.599 that way. Be sure to catch live editions about kick 1:48:45.680 --> 1:48:48.400 the Coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am 1:48:48.439 --> 1:48:52.320 Eastern three am Pacific. Last couple of questions here, and 1:48:52.320 --> 1:48:54.160 I appreciate all the time you've been listening to SEC 1:48:54.240 --> 1:48:57.160 Commissioner Greg sanky Uh this is the Winds and Lost 1:48:57.200 --> 1:49:01.080 his podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Um. You you mentioned the 1:49:01.320 --> 1:49:03.960 salaries that you made along the way, and for much 1:49:04.000 --> 1:49:06.840 of your career you're making a decent living, but it's 1:49:06.840 --> 1:49:09.719 not like you're making a living where you can really 1:49:09.760 --> 1:49:12.240 feel like, hey, I might build some wealth here. Right. 1:49:12.560 --> 1:49:15.080 That's changed for you in the last couple of years. 1:49:15.400 --> 1:49:18.000 How has that changed? And for people out there? And 1:49:18.000 --> 1:49:20.360 I think there's a lot of people listening who you know, 1:49:20.439 --> 1:49:23.439 are grinding away at their job and they don't necessarily know, 1:49:23.600 --> 1:49:26.439 if there's any possibility that they're ever going to make 1:49:26.600 --> 1:49:29.080 more money. Is it better to make more money? Do 1:49:29.120 --> 1:49:31.639 you feel more comfortable now to be in a position 1:49:31.640 --> 1:49:34.280 in a chair where you're making a decent salary or 1:49:34.680 --> 1:49:36.600 and that might have been an aspiration of yours, have 1:49:36.680 --> 1:49:39.160 you found it to be overrated? I'm curious, you know, 1:49:39.200 --> 1:49:41.080 because you've been grinding away at your career for a 1:49:41.120 --> 1:49:44.040 long time, and there's a big jump between being the 1:49:44.120 --> 1:49:47.600 number two guy and being a conference commissioner. Uh that 1:49:47.600 --> 1:49:49.240 that that? Frankly, I mean it has got to be 1:49:49.320 --> 1:49:52.720 somewhat life changing. Well when I when I made a 1:49:52.800 --> 1:49:56.559 lesser salary, I didn't have to read about it in 1:49:56.720 --> 1:50:01.160 the newspapers every so often. That's just a really strange experience. 1:50:02.040 --> 1:50:05.320 Um that that Again, there's not like a master's level 1:50:05.400 --> 1:50:10.400 program that prepares you for that reality. And you know, Clay, 1:50:10.560 --> 1:50:13.240 you have to understand that as I walk through some 1:50:13.360 --> 1:50:17.160 of those job decisions, you know they were savings spent, 1:50:17.439 --> 1:50:22.719 retirement accounts that went away or debt accumulated within reason 1:50:24.880 --> 1:50:27.320 that we're part of. That was part of that. Two 1:50:27.400 --> 1:50:30.680 daughters going to college, You've got your you have a 1:50:30.680 --> 1:50:33.080 normal life, right, I mean you're never making money that's 1:50:33.120 --> 1:50:36.559 outside of the realm of normalcy. Yeah, when our oldest 1:50:36.560 --> 1:50:39.040 one to college, it wasn't like this huge college fund 1:50:39.160 --> 1:50:42.479 is part of these decisions and moves and and we're 1:50:42.520 --> 1:50:45.559 all going to make decisions, and we're again make the 1:50:45.680 --> 1:50:49.639 best decision we can bases on as much information. But yeah, 1:50:49.680 --> 1:50:52.200 you get to a point where I made a healthy 1:50:52.280 --> 1:50:57.519 living and it transitions and commissioner's role. But I will 1:50:57.560 --> 1:51:00.519 go back and say that I had but when I 1:51:00.560 --> 1:51:03.320 spent that night in the hospital and then spent three 1:51:03.439 --> 1:51:05.439 or four years trying to figure out how is it 1:51:05.479 --> 1:51:07.959 that I'm going to live? And part of that's informed 1:51:07.960 --> 1:51:11.439 by faith, but a set of principles and how I 1:51:11.479 --> 1:51:14.880 wanted to conduct myself, and part of that is living 1:51:14.880 --> 1:51:18.600 within my means um so that whether I got the 1:51:18.720 --> 1:51:22.120 job back in two thousand fifteen or didn't, I could 1:51:22.200 --> 1:51:25.160 function and I had flexibility to go take the next 1:51:25.200 --> 1:51:28.479 opportunity that would be right for me. And so you 1:51:28.840 --> 1:51:32.680 have this this financial upside that comes you realize exactly 1:51:32.720 --> 1:51:36.280 what tax rates mean they're talked about because they were 1:51:36.320 --> 1:51:40.480 pretty abstract then. And then there's another set of realities 1:51:40.520 --> 1:51:43.720 where it's not like um, there aren't pressures that come 1:51:43.720 --> 1:51:45.679 with that. I once set one of our had football 1:51:45.720 --> 1:51:48.800 coaches offices. This is ten or fifteen years ago, and 1:51:48.840 --> 1:51:50.840 I remember sitting there. I was there for an hour 1:51:50.920 --> 1:51:53.400 is really engaging meeting, But there was the biggest bottle 1:51:53.439 --> 1:51:57.639 of may loox on his desk behind him, behind his desk, 1:51:58.040 --> 1:52:00.840 and I remember thinking, I don't remember what we talked about, really, 1:52:01.160 --> 1:52:04.840 but I remember thinking, wow, he's got maylocks. I wonder 1:52:05.000 --> 1:52:07.320 what the pressures that eat at his stomach are on 1:52:07.360 --> 1:52:09.880 a day to day basis, because mine are, Hey, if 1:52:09.920 --> 1:52:11.840 I lose my job, can I pay my mortgage? I'm 1:52:11.840 --> 1:52:14.720 gonna pay for college? What about when my kids get married? Laugh? 1:52:14.840 --> 1:52:18.240 Enough in retirement. He's got none of that because of 1:52:18.280 --> 1:52:20.920 what he makes. And so there's this whole other set 1:52:20.920 --> 1:52:24.960 of pressures that that exists for that individual. Well, that's 1:52:24.960 --> 1:52:29.360 really true, you know, the the notion I kidded and 1:52:29.400 --> 1:52:33.559 said to someone the next time I asked about my salary, 1:52:33.600 --> 1:52:35.719 I say, when you look at it, like in total 1:52:35.840 --> 1:52:38.080 on an annual basis at the law, but when you 1:52:38.120 --> 1:52:41.000 consider what it is per death threat, it's not that much. 1:52:43.400 --> 1:52:48.880 And that's you give your life to this job, and 1:52:49.280 --> 1:52:53.240 that is a very different existence than what I lived 1:52:53.280 --> 1:52:56.759 for thirty years. Nothing wrong with it. I was prepared 1:52:56.800 --> 1:53:00.880 as prepared as I could be. But that move from 1:53:00.920 --> 1:53:04.479 the second chair to the lead chair of that gap 1:53:05.360 --> 1:53:09.960 is really how your life is then dictated by by 1:53:10.000 --> 1:53:13.559 the role. Last question, In fact, fact, I'll add when 1:53:13.560 --> 1:53:15.800 Mike stepped down, somebody said what are you looking forward to? 1:53:15.920 --> 1:53:19.160 And he said, not having my schedule dictated to me, 1:53:19.960 --> 1:53:24.200 not for me, but to me, And that's part of 1:53:24.200 --> 1:53:28.519 the reality that that probably informs the compensation. What do you? 1:53:28.640 --> 1:53:30.840 Last question for you? What do you do? You talked 1:53:30.840 --> 1:53:33.760 about being thirty two and having that moment where you're 1:53:33.800 --> 1:53:36.600 working all the time, caffeine four and five hours of 1:53:36.680 --> 1:53:39.559 sleep at night. What do you do now to try 1:53:39.600 --> 1:53:42.599 to get away and allow your mind to be somewhat clear? 1:53:42.640 --> 1:53:45.800 Because your decisions are a lot more consequential now than 1:53:45.840 --> 1:53:48.639 they were when you were thirty two and suddenly had 1:53:48.680 --> 1:53:51.439 that moment where you're standing at the urinal and everything 1:53:51.479 --> 1:53:54.400 comes crashing down around you. How do you manage that 1:53:54.560 --> 1:53:56.960 stress that mailocks moment as you just put it with 1:53:57.000 --> 1:53:59.840 that coach now and get away and be able to 1:54:00.200 --> 1:54:02.800 or your mind and make good decisions. That aren't just 1:54:02.920 --> 1:54:05.640 good for today or tomorrow, but we'll look good in 1:54:05.680 --> 1:54:08.080 five to ten years as the hope. Yeah. Well, the 1:54:08.160 --> 1:54:10.479 cool thing is my blood pressure, because I had to 1:54:10.560 --> 1:54:13.360 check yesterday was one over sixty eight, which I think 1:54:13.400 --> 1:54:17.120 is a pretty good accomplishment after four years and this job, 1:54:17.240 --> 1:54:20.400 and with the learning from that that experience of the 1:54:20.479 --> 1:54:24.080 night in the hospital back in was with two things. 1:54:24.160 --> 1:54:27.240 On a daily basis, I needed to have a rhythm, 1:54:27.320 --> 1:54:30.000 and this is where I'm working with. Mike'slive helped me immentally, 1:54:30.000 --> 1:54:31.840 as he was a morning person and I was not 1:54:32.040 --> 1:54:34.840 an early morning person. And the only part of my 1:54:34.920 --> 1:54:37.000 day I control is early morning. So I get up 1:54:37.000 --> 1:54:39.600 and I exercise right away, and then I have about 1:54:39.640 --> 1:54:42.520 an hour for some time for myself and I usually 1:54:42.520 --> 1:54:45.280 go to a coffee shop and I'll read, I might 1:54:45.320 --> 1:54:48.600 do some work, I might do some some reading about 1:54:48.640 --> 1:54:51.880 faith and life, uh at some time of reflection. But 1:54:52.080 --> 1:54:55.760 that's an hour of my time and that just puts 1:54:55.760 --> 1:54:58.120 me in such a healthy frame of mind, even with 1:54:58.200 --> 1:55:01.640 the pressures around me. And that's usually from six thirty 1:55:01.680 --> 1:55:03.560 to seven thirty and them and in the office, and 1:55:03.560 --> 1:55:06.520 then the day just goes um and it will be 1:55:06.600 --> 1:55:10.480 six six thirty seven o'clock before you know, I realized 1:55:10.720 --> 1:55:13.320 what day it is much what like what time it is. 1:55:14.040 --> 1:55:16.120 And so the first thing I've learned is I have 1:55:16.200 --> 1:55:19.320 to control that morning time and be pretty disciplined about 1:55:19.360 --> 1:55:24.320 it whenever I'm home and keep that routine. Um. And 1:55:24.360 --> 1:55:27.680 then I used some time uh in the you know, 1:55:27.720 --> 1:55:30.040 our kids are grown, so it's Kathy and I and 1:55:30.440 --> 1:55:32.600 you know, to talk and try to have dinner at 1:55:32.600 --> 1:55:35.520 home and have some part of regular book end. But 1:55:35.600 --> 1:55:38.240 then every couple of months, I need to step away 1:55:38.640 --> 1:55:41.600 and I need to make that time. Now it's impossible 1:55:41.640 --> 1:55:44.080 for me to do in the fall, so I've I've 1:55:44.080 --> 1:55:46.760 had to adjust. So like the week before football season 1:55:46.760 --> 1:55:49.160 and I'm gonna be away from the office. I'll be 1:55:49.200 --> 1:55:51.640 on the phone talking, but it will give me these 1:55:51.680 --> 1:55:55.040 moments to decompress and think and prepare for fourteen really 1:55:55.080 --> 1:55:58.080 intense weeks of football season. And on the back end, 1:55:58.160 --> 1:56:01.840 I do the same. I'll grab four or five days. Uh. 1:56:02.440 --> 1:56:04.960 We've we've had a rental house that we've used in 1:56:05.320 --> 1:56:08.040 upstate New York where we grew up. Um, and so 1:56:08.120 --> 1:56:10.560 we'll go up there actually for the next couple of weeks. 1:56:10.640 --> 1:56:13.240 Around July four to do a lot, and I've had 1:56:13.280 --> 1:56:17.280 to be more intentional about just blocking time. And my 1:56:17.400 --> 1:56:21.800 earlier comment about my schedule is dictated to me. Hey, 1:56:21.960 --> 1:56:23.720 there there are things where I've said, Okay, I'm gonna 1:56:23.720 --> 1:56:26.560 get away for three or four days to just think 1:56:26.680 --> 1:56:30.240 through things. Not not like vacation where I'm riding roller 1:56:30.280 --> 1:56:32.800 coasters and things, but I'm gonna go away so I 1:56:32.800 --> 1:56:36.160 can think through issues in a different setting. And then 1:56:36.160 --> 1:56:38.480 it just evaporates because something comes up and I have 1:56:38.600 --> 1:56:41.000 to be here or there. So that is part of 1:56:41.040 --> 1:56:45.680 the challenge of the role. But my earlier experience has 1:56:45.760 --> 1:56:49.400 helped me think through and try to prepare for that time, 1:56:49.400 --> 1:56:51.879 whether it's on a daily basis or on this every 1:56:52.120 --> 1:56:54.560 couple of months like where I step away for a day, 1:56:55.120 --> 1:56:57.800 try to think, get get my get my mind right 1:56:57.840 --> 1:57:01.080 with ball as they say, and get into a planning 1:57:01.120 --> 1:57:04.080 and preparation process. I know I said last question, but 1:57:04.120 --> 1:57:07.000 this one is is last question. You're from New York. 1:57:07.560 --> 1:57:10.840 Does not having an SEC degree, which Mike Slive also 1:57:10.960 --> 1:57:13.760 didn't have, is that a free requisite now to be 1:57:13.800 --> 1:57:16.320 the Commissioner of the SEC So people don't look at 1:57:16.320 --> 1:57:18.080 you and assume that you're going to be biased in 1:57:18.120 --> 1:57:20.760 one direction or another, or do you think that's just 1:57:21.160 --> 1:57:23.800 happenstance that both of you guys have kind of come 1:57:24.200 --> 1:57:27.000 from an area, in an arena where you didn't have 1:57:27.120 --> 1:57:31.000 a direct connection from birth to an SEC school. We 1:57:31.360 --> 1:57:34.440 have forty members of our staff. I think twenty of 1:57:34.480 --> 1:57:37.520 them have SEC or maybe more degrees, and so I 1:57:37.560 --> 1:57:41.360 think I have every confidence people can do jobs um 1:57:41.400 --> 1:57:45.960 in a neutral way despite their their degree. However, I'll 1:57:46.000 --> 1:57:49.400 answer it with the first time I met Steve Spurrier, Um, 1:57:49.480 --> 1:57:51.680 it's just he and I and a one on one situation. 1:57:51.920 --> 1:57:53.680 He didn't know me. He said, Hey, where do you 1:57:53.720 --> 1:57:56.080 go to college? And I said, well, I got my 1:57:56.160 --> 1:57:59.640 undergraduate degree from a state University of New York, Courtland 1:57:59.720 --> 1:58:03.200 Stay and my masters at Schyracuses of that, that's who 1:58:03.200 --> 1:58:04.360 we need is a bunch of people are on that 1:58:04.400 --> 1:58:07.040 office don't care who wins or who loses. So at 1:58:07.120 --> 1:58:10.480 least from the Steve Spurrier definition, Um, there was an 1:58:10.520 --> 1:58:15.840 asset with not having an SEC university affiliation. That's a 1:58:15.840 --> 1:58:18.000 perfect ending with a Steve Spurrier quote. And as Steve 1:58:18.000 --> 1:58:20.320 Spurri your accident, Greg Sanky, you've hung out with us 1:58:20.320 --> 1:58:22.360 here for a long time. You can find Greg Sanky 1:58:22.440 --> 1:58:24.880 on Twitter at Greg Sanky. Let him know what you 1:58:24.920 --> 1:58:27.320 think about this interview. He may or may not see it. 1:58:27.400 --> 1:58:30.120 Whatever you do, don't insult him, or if you do, 1:58:30.280 --> 1:58:32.280 claim that you're a fine bomb listener, not a Clay 1:58:32.280 --> 1:58:35.360 Travis listener. Uh and uh. I appreciate all of you 1:58:35.400 --> 1:58:37.360 for listening to Wins and Losses. Thanks again, man, this 1:58:37.400 --> 1:58:39.000 has been outstanding. I think people are really going to 1:58:39.080 --> 1:58:42.760 enjoy it. Thank you again, Greg Sanky at Greg Sanky 1:58:42.800 --> 1:58:45.200 on Twitter. This has been Wins and Losses with Clay Travis. 1:58:45.200 --> 1:58:47.400 Hope you enjoyed this one. Hope you enjoyed Jason Whitlock, 1:58:47.720 --> 1:58:50.720 and hope you enjoy Shannon Terry. We're gonna have a 1:58:50.720 --> 1:58:53.480 lot of fun conversations. Go subscribe if you haven't already. 1:58:53.480 --> 1:58:56.120 I'm Clay Travis and this has been Wins and Losses.