The first reaction must be sympathy. SEC commissioner Mike Slive announced his retirement Tuesday -- effective July 31 -- at the same time he begins treatment for recurrence of prostate cancer.
Even those who didn't like a good cigar and a glass of wine are praying for him. The second reaction is wonder and awe, because we got to live through it. That would be this great and wonderful era that Michael Lawrence Slive has shaped.
The SEC will continue to be great and glorious, but we will never have these times again. They will end officially in some way July 31, the date of Slive's retirement. But his impact will be felt for decades.
These have been times shaped by a former high school quarterback from Utica, N.Y., a former Dartmouth/Virginia/Georgetown-educated attorney. A former Cornell AD, a one-time NCAA troubleshooter who basically created the job description.
In the end Slive told a friend this week, "In 13 years, I've had as much fun as I need to have."
And that's what it has been since he took office in 2002. Fun. Before Slive we didn't evaluate each season by first ascertaining who was going to win the SEC. Before Slive, we didn’t consider the conference championship game a de facto national semifinal.
Before Slive, there wasn't jealously and flat-out hate at what the SEC had become -- a giant. Before Slive, no conference had even come close to dominating the game. Eight straight BCS title games (seven championships) and counting.
Before Slive, the SEC didn't build the biggest and best and pay coaches the highest. Before Slive, we didn't consider how far diversity could go. Five SEC schools have hired African-American head football coaches during his time.
Before Slive we didn't consider everything in college sports through the lens of the Southeastern Conference.
"Mike's best attribute is that he moved the dial on intercollegiate athletics," said Wright Waters, a close friend and executive director of the Football Bowl Association. "He had a very powerful position at the SEC, and he used it for good. Think about where athletics was in 2002 and where it is today."
All we have to do is look at the polls. Two also-rans for most of their time in the SEC, Mississippi State is No. 1 and Mississippi is No. 3. The two programs are the talk of the country.
Somewhere Bear Bryant is growling, "Huh?"
"It's because his vision of what the SEC Network could do [to] put enough money in Mississippi State and Ole Miss to build enough facilities," Waters said, "to hire Dan Mullen and Hugh Freeze. That puts the competition back on the field and keeps the rich from getting richer and poor from getting poorer."
In that sense, Mike Slive's greatest contribution may be indirect benevolent revenue sharing. Any commissioner's No. 1 job goal is to make as much money as possible and return it to the schools. Mike Slive became king of college athletics' ATM.
In his time, he lifted the SEC from a conference among many to the strongest intercollegiate brand, well, ever. Since his arrival in August 2002, SEC revenues went from $96 million to $310 million. The launch of that SEC Network in August created the promise of schools one day cashing media rights checks of more than $40 million annually.
That'll buy you a lot of Chick-fil-A. In the SEC's case it has maximized the ravenous interest in football and validated Slive as a high-class businessman.
It was he who first floated the idea of a playoff (then called a "plus-one" model). It was Slive who created the diversity initiative. He had the vision and guts to clean up the league's off-field renegade image. Slive basically delivered on a promise to rid the SEC of schools on probation for major violations within five years.
Slive, 74, basically called the conference in for supper, made it wipe its shoes on the mat and wash its hands. He classed the place up.
Under Slive, the conference went from Golden Flake to Madison Avenue, from carry-out to white-tablecloth. You walk into an SEC stadium and the game changes. Attendance records are broken. Television ratings spike. Cowbells are rung. History is made. Championships are won.
That's nothing against SEC godfather Roy Kramer, who had the vision to expand the league to 12 teams in 1992. But everything changed in 2002 at a Collegiate Commissioners Association meeting in San Francisco. College sports' movers and shakers were gathered. Slive, then the Conference USA commissioner, was contemplating taking the SEC job.
Slive -- a native Northeasterner, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants -- wondered how he would play in the South.
"It's not like we eat dirt," Waters told him. "You'll get four syllables out of s-h-i-t in no time."
Slive is -- at his core -- a people person. That's quite a salute in an era where robots and empty-eyed suits can look right through you.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott recalled a tumultuous first game on the job in 2009. Oregon's LeGarrette Blount had punched a Boise State player during postgame handshakes.
"Something happened here but we don't have the foggiest idea what," Scott recalled. "I picked Mike's brain, his shared experiences. Right from the get-go, he was very generous with advice and counsel."
Blount was suspended and later reinstated without incident.
Slive's annual state-of-the-conference addresses at SEC Media Days were must-see. Slive annually dived into his "brag bag" to talk about the conference's accomplishments that particular year. Then he might unabashedly call out NCAA president Mark Emmert.
Because he could. Because Emmert had to listen.
In that moment, you realized it might have been Slive and the SEC who were ruling the NCAA, not the other way around. Then -- at least this year -- Slive melted hearts. His 2-year-old granddaughter Abigail was waiting in the hotel hallway for him.
Slive ruled with a velvet hammer. The best leaders do. There's a reason the College Football Playoff will be populated with the four "best" teams. The SEC couldn't tolerate four conference champions. They'll never say it, but that would have limited the playoff to one SEC school.
The retirement affected Charles Bloom on a personal level. South Carolina's senior associate AD spent 17 years in the SEC as media relations director and associate commissioner.
"The last 12-13 years, his name is almost on every major thing in intercollegiate athletics," Bloom said. "The success of the league will be talked about. But when you talk about those successes off the floor, off the field, those are as big if not bigger."
Slive could show empathy for everyone from hotel workers to media members. He loved the "bunker" at SEC headquarters in Birmingham. It was there he watched conference games on Saturdays, monitoring everything that was going on.
If it was a good week, on Sunday he might step out into his garden behind his house and enjoy that cigar and glass of wine, his wife of 46 years, Liz, nearby.
"He's the greatest combination of intelligence and empathy," Bloom said, "I've ever been around."