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Slive has hands full as new SEC commissioner

With 9 major NCAA violations since 1990, the league's in desperate need of an enforcer.

By ANTONYA ENGLISH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 31, 2002

HOOVER, Ala. -- An hour before new SEC commissioner Mike Slive was introduced to reporters at Media Days, his legendary predecessor Roy Kramer was 30 miles away gathering the final remnants of 12 years spent building the richest athletic conference in the nation.

Kramer spent the morning in the solitude of his second floor Birmingham office, preparing to sever ties and allow Slive to take the reins.

"I think he has to be his own man," Kramer said Tuesday morning. "And he's shown he's very competent and has the ability to do that."

His competence -- and his vast experience in the field of NCAA rules enforcement -- were major reasons the league's presidents decided Slive was the man to lead the conference into the future.

The 61-year-old former attorney and district judge was once part of a law firm that advised schools such as Florida, Miami and Florida State on problems with the NCAA. He is the chair of the first NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee and the National Letter of Intent Appeals Committee.

"He's had some of the greatest experiences that anybody could have as far as NCAA infractions go because he had to go over all the cases that went before the committee on infractions," said Jim McCullough, SEC associate commissioner in charge of NCAA rules interpretations. "And having been the leader of Conference USA, he certainly is very aware of what the rules and regulations are.

He'll need to be.

Beginning Thursday, Slive takes over a 12-team league that since 1990 has been found guilty of nine major infractions by the NCAA, more than twice the number of any major conference, according to NCAA records. Every SEC school has been accused of major rules infractions at least once since 1990.

Slive said he'll make it clear from the start that breaking the rules won't be tolerated.

"To the extent that this conference has had issues relating to NCAA infractions, we need to come to grips with those," Slive said. "We need to deal with the ones we have now with integrity and we need to move ahead and develop a methodology of dealing with these and letting all of our fans and friends know that these violations in the future are just not acceptable."

Kentucky and Alabama are on probation, the Crimson Tide doing time for the second time in seven years. Arkansas has been under NCAA investigation for the past 17 months, and last week, admitted to a major NCAA violation involving overpayment of players who worked for a company owned by a prominent booster. The Razorbacks face a loss of eight football and one basketball scholarship over the next four years and the case is scheduled to be heard in August by the NCAA Infractions Committee. Also, NCAA investigators will be on Mississippi State's campus this week to conduct interviews on self-reported violations over the past 18 months.

And though SEC schools have been found guilty of major violations 42 times since 1953 when the NCAA began keeping records, Slive said it's important not to blow things out of proportion.

"We have to put this in perspective. One of the great strengths of this conference is that people are so passionate about it," Slive said. ". . .So everything we do is under a microscope, which I think is unparalleled (compared to) other conferences in this country. So when we have these problems they become magnified. ... Our goal is to put these behind us. We're going to develop a task force to think about how we want to deal with this internally so next year this time these are questions you won't have to ask me."

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