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SEC Extends Contract With Slive Through 2012

Posted: March 5, 2009

BIRMINGHAM, AL -- The Southeastern Conference Presidents and Chancellors announced today that SEC Commissioner Mike Slive and the conference have agreed to a contract extension through July 31, 2012.

"Commissioner Slive has been an absolutely great addition to our conference," said University of Kentucky and Southeastern Conference President Dr. Lee T. Todd. "He is providing great vision and directing the SEC to a new prominence in college athletics. I am thrilled we have locked him in to lead our conference for years to come."

In August 2009, the SEC will begin its landmark 15-year agreements with CBS and ESPN that will make the league the most widely distributed conference on television in the nation. These arrangements will also secure the financial health of the SEC and its member institutions for years to come.

Since Slive's arrival at the SEC in 2002, he has developed initiatives designed to maintain and improve the SEC's position as one of the top intercollegiate athletic conferences in the nation, both on and off the fields of play. These include:

  • The SEC Task Force on Compliance and Enforcement issued its first report at the 2004 SEC Spring Meetings. The task force developed policies and procedures to assist league schools in NCAA and SEC compliance and enforcement matters.

  • The SEC Academic Consortium was created in 2005 to increase academic cooperation across the league by linking the resources of the 12 member institutions.

  • The SEC has created a partnership with The Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University to implement the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program at each of the 12 member institutions.

  • The SEC annually distributes a database of names and biographies of every minority head and assistant football coach on the Division I level to every one of its schools and every conference in Division I.

  • The SEC has initiated policies and procedures designed to foster sportsmanship and preventing inappropriate fan behavior.

    "I am gratified that the Presidents and Chancellors have extended my contract and I am honored to serve as the Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference," said Slive. "We have accomplished many of our goals since my arrival in 2002 and there will be new challenges and goals to meet in the future. I look forward to these challenges as we continue to make the SEC one of the nation's top intercollegiate athletic conferences."

    Since Slive has been at the SEC, he has served as coordinator of the Bowl Championship Series (2006-08) and is currently the chair of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee. In 2002-03, Slive served on the Commission of Athletic Opportunity, set up by the U.S. Secretary of Education to review the workings of Title IX.

    The SEC has been successful on the fields of play since Slive's arrival in 2002. The league has won 21 men's and 23 women's national championships – an average of more than six overall per academic year.

    Slive, 68, became the seventh commissioner of the SEC on July 1, 2002. He previously was the first commissioner of Conference USA from 1995-2002 and was the first commissioner of the Great Midwest Conference upon its founding in 1991. His initial contract was extended in 2005 through the 2008-09 academic year.

    A native of Utica, N.Y., Slive graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1962. He earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia Law School in 1965 and an LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1966.

    Slive and his wife, Elizabeth, are the parents of a daughter, Anna.



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