Monthly Archive for July, 2008

SEC@100

Why wait to see what the SEC will look like at 100 years old? To consider the future, it helps to remember the past.

Twenty-five years ago, Bear Bryant died and the next SEC coaching legend, Steve Spurrier, was in the USFL; the SEC had 10 members; conferences couldn’t negotiate their own TV deals; the SEC football championship game was a decade away; and the SEC’s first black football coach wouldn’t arrive for another two decades. The SEC distributed $9.53 million to its members in 1983, compared to $127.2 million to 12 members in 2008. Imagine what 2033 will look like. We offer some fanciful but not implausible forecasts:

  SPURRIER CONCLUDES CAREER
The Young Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier Jr., nears the end of his distinguished football coaching career at Tennessee. Florida still kicks itself for letting another Spurrier get away.

SEC NETWORK
Talk in 2008 about whether the SEC would go to its own channel is laughable now. Every major conference has one. Fans regularly watch games on their computer and phone in addition to television sets.

SUITES EQUAL MONEY
Many SEC stadiums follow the NFL approach: Scale back in size and beef up luxury boxes, where more money can be made. Nonetheless, Bryant-Denny-Saban Stadium exceeds 100,000 and is the largest in the country.

DIVERSITY AT COMMISSIONER
Damon Evans, Georgia’s longtime athletics director while Mark Richt won multiple national championships, becomes the first black commissioner of the SEC. As usual with race, the SEC is near the end of the line nationally.

OPENLY GAY ATHLETES
After openly gay athletes come forward in professional leagues, the trend trickles down to colleges, even in the South. Vanderbilt, before leaving the SEC and being replaced by Louisville, produces the SEC’s first openly gay athlete in a major sport.

ROTATING SEC FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
Holding the game in Atlanta presents competitive and financial challenges because the Georgia Bulldogs won too often in the aging Georgia Dome. Other cities also host. Birmingham is not considered because it never built a dome and coaches are gun-shy of subpoenas.

HONORING MUSCHAMP
Will Muschamp, hired by Auburn after Tommy Tuberville, receives consideration as one of the greatest SEC coaches of the past quarter century. Winning Auburn’s second national championship makes him a legend.

REMEMBERING TUBBY
Thirty-five years since their most recent national title, Kentucky basketball fans remember Tubby Smith fondly. The 25-year reunion in 2023 helped put to rest some bitter feelings that lingered.

GREATEST SEC ATHLETES
The Birmingham News, now in digital form, picks the greatest athletes of the SEC’s first 100 years. Tim Tebow is No. 1. Old-timers argue for Bo Jackson. Without media guides, athletes from the SEC’s first 30 years are forgotten.

****Breaking news****

POLICE REPORT: Nick Saban’s Home ‘egged’

The report stated:
An empty egg carton was recovered at the scene. Two eggs hit Coach Saban’s house, 3 eggs went over his house and hit his neighbor’s back door, 2 eggs hit the houses of each of his next door neighbors, and the remaining 3 eggs were found broken on the ground near the carton fromwhere the individual threw them. Looking at what was hit, police officials say they are considering John Parker Wilson as the primary suspect.

Q: What is Nick Saban’s biggest concern?

A: Does the NCAA count bail money as a recruiting violation?

Q: What do you call a drug ring in Tuscaloosa ?

A: A huddle

Q: Why can’t most of the Bama players get into a huddle on the field?

A: It is a parole violation to associate with known felons.

The Bama team has adopted a new Honor System: ‘Yes, your Honor; No, your Honor’.