DESTIN, Fla. — In a college world increasingly filled with empty suits, flapping gums and celebrity lawyers, Greg Sankey carved out some space Thursday to declare he is not a member of those distinct clubs.
The 59-year-old SEC commissioner, in his ninth year, did more than that at the conclusion of the SEC spring meetings. It was both about time and about his time.
In his own low-key way, Sankey simmered, declaring his frustration at a system he is both part of and increasingly despises. His comments came after a question at a final press conference regarding the SEC’s recent partnership with the Big Ten.
To backtrack: After January’s College Football Playoff Championship Game, Sankey flew to Phoenix for a series of NCAA meetings “where we accomplished little.” It was then he decided to call Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti.
“Afterwards traveling home, [I thought], ‘You know, we have some really big problems. It didn’t seem to me that we were working to solve some of the medium problems,'” Sankey said Thursday. “I have thought for a long period of time that if the two conferences could agree, you could fulfill a leadership responsibility. That was the genesis of the phone call.”
The two commissioners have since stressed they are not uniting to take over the world. They have decided agendas have to be set nationwide. The NCAA’s inattentiveness to, well, everything, sent the association into a legal spiral where it is currently trying to figure out the ramifications of the House settlement.
In the end, the SEC and Big Ten schools can pretty much afford the damage. But that’s not the point. The leadership void in the system is massive.
It just happened to be Sankey’s turn to fill it on Thursday.
“We need to have more conversations, not less,” Sankey said of his partnership with Petitti. “The line came to me at the end of [that] week — this was not a lightning moment — the realization…
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