SEC boss Slive hopes bold proposals will lead to change
HOOVER, Ala. -- Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive wants student-athletes to receive multi-year scholarships. He wants higher academic standards for incoming freshmen. He wants a simpler NCAA rule book. He's also probably in favor of world peace and eternal youth.
Sure, world peace is a possibility, but a simpler NCAA rule book? The old guy is nuts.
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But Slive, who will turn 71 on Tuesday, has big dreams. And even bigger plans.
Inside the Wynfrey Hotel, Slive laid out a plan to make sweeping, radical changes throughout college football -- changes that are necessary to repair a broken-down system.
Afterward, he glanced at his cell phone. Among the text messages Slive received was one from NCAA president Mark Emmert. "Great speech. Well done."
"You know sometimes it's an idea whose time has come," Slive said. "This may sound corny to you, but I've often believed that every problem is an opportunity."
That's how the most powerful man in college athletics summed up the sweeping changes in college athletics he proposed at SEC media days.
Slive stressed he doesn't have all the details. In fact, he wants others to determine which details work best.
"One thing I didn't do was try to map out all of the details of the proposals," Slive said. "I can't do that anyway. What I was trying to do is set the agenda and let the people who deal with these issues sit down and see what are the issues and what are the problems.
"The important thing here is not to let this languish, but to get to it. Now some of the ideas might not be good, but these are thoughts I hope will stimulate a national agenda for change."
The NCAA certainly is on board. And so are the commissioners of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12. Slive consulted with them all before delivering his message to the media masses Wednesday.
"We welcome Commissioner Slive's thoughtful suggestions and they are in line with the spirit and intent of next month's Division I presidential retreat hosted by President Emmert," said Bob Williams, the NCAA's vice president of communications. "It is very encouraging to have commissioners, presidents and other leaders actively engaged on the issues affecting intercollegiate athletics as we move forward."
So what exactly what type of change does Slive envision? He indicated four primary areas:
- Redefine the benefits available to student-athletes;
- Strengthen academic eligibility requirements for incoming freshman and two-year transfers;
- Modernize the recruiting rules;
- Continue to support the NCAA's efforts to improve the enforcement process.
He wants to pay athletes the full cost of scholarships. Also, one of his recommendations is increasing the minimum grade-point average of incoming freshmen from 2.0 to 2.5 in 16 core classes and the restoration of partial qualifiers. Student-athletes who meet the old criteria but fall short of the tougher standards would still be able to enroll on scholarship and practice, but could not compete as freshmen.
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier is not in favor of the higher academic requirements.
"For some reason, we seem to want to try to make it more and more difficult on some of these young men," Spurrier said. "They come from difficult backgrounds, difficult academic settings and so forth."
However, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino likes the academic recommendations.
"I kind of agree with the thought of let's toughen the college requirements," Petrino said. "Let's make these guys all take the same classes their freshman year. Let's take care of our business in college."
Slive said he didn't believe raising the GPA is a sticking point.
"It will have some impact," he said.
Spurrier also was not in favor of Slive's proposals for multi-year scholarships.
"That's a terrible idea," Spurrier said. "Do you sports writers have a two-year contract, three or four years? If you go bad, don't show up to work, your butt will be out on the street. Everybody has to earn your way in life."
That's the beauty of Slive's proposals. Not even his league coaches agree with some of his proposals, but they will get people talking and reacting because the current system is gushing oil.
Already in 2011, five schools nationally -- Arkansas State, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Georgia Tech and LSU -- have received sanctions for NCAA major infractions and this year is on pace for crushing the record of seven major violations by college football programs in 1987.
In the past 25 years, Vanderbilt is the only SEC school that has not received a major football violation.
The SEC certainly isn't the only guilty party as 46 of the 67 automatic qualifying BCS schools -- nearly 70 percent -- have committed major violations the past 25 years.
"We don't have the luxury of acting as if it's business as usual," Slive said. "And that's been made clear by the headlines emanating from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes.
"We have lost the benefit of the doubt."
Slive also proposed changes in recruiting rules -- including removing restrictions on coaches using phone calls, text messages and social media to contact recruits.
"I've often wondered why we've had all those prohibitions with telephone calls," Slive said. "The way kids communicate is by text and we tell them we can't communicate with them. That's how they talk.
"You get a violation for phone calls and texting, and all of a sudden everyone looks at you like you're not doing it the right way. What we need to deter is the behavior we really don't want, and we need rules that are clear."
The NCAA needs a lot of changes. Slive -- and the other BCS conference commissioners -- want a lot of changes. For now, at least, that's a start.
"My hope is when everyone thinks about these issues, they make sense," Slive said. "They're ideas and an agenda. What happens and where it goes from here, we'll have to see."
