After a prolonged fight against prostate cancer, former SEC football commissioner Mike Slive has passed away. Slive led the the SEC to unparalleled growth.
Right before his retirement in 2015, SEC commissioner Mike Slive announced his prostate cancer had returned. Tackling the cancer with more treatments, Slive spent the past several years battling to stay alive. It has not been confirmed that cancer was the direct cause of his death. But it certainly contributed to the deterioration of Slive’s health in his final years.
Right up to his death at age 77, Slive fought both his personal battle and a collective fight to raise money and awareness about prostate cancer. His willingness to use his personal experience to help the broader community of those afflicted by cancer revealed the quality of fight in the man. Slive finally lost that fight on May 16, passing away at age 77 in his home in Birmingham, Alabama.
It was the same quality of fight that led Slive to emerge as the most influential man in college football over the first decade and a half of the 21st century.
Slive’s reign as commissioner of the SEC coincided with the heart of the BCS era in college football. SEC schools won seven straight national titles while Slive was the commissioner. In total, conference members won 81 national championships in 17 different intercollegiate sports over the course of Slive’s tenure.
Slive was a Yankee who became a favorite adopted son of the south
Born in Utica, New York in 1940, Slive was hardly the person one might typecast to become the favorite son of SEC country. After getting his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth, Slive earned law degrees at the University of Virginia and at Georgetown before heading back to the northeast.
Slive settled in New Hampshire after college, where he practiced law and spent six years in the mid-1970s as a judge in the Hanover District Court. He later became partner in a law firm in Chicago before turning toward sports and sports management.
Already in his 40s by the time he really dove into the world of intercollegiate sports, Slive spent time in management at both the school and conference level. He variously served as assistant director of athletics at Dartmouth College, assistant executive director of the Pacific-10 Conference, and director of athletics at Cornell University.
In 1991, Slive got his first chance to serve as the commissioner of a college athletic conference. The short-lived Great Midwest Conference tabbed Slive as its first and only commissioner. After four years, the forerunner to Conference USA expanded and rebranded after the 1995 season. Slive remained on as the C-USA commissioner for eight more years.
Then the SEC came calling. Roy Kramer was stepping down after a visionary run as the SEC commissioner, and Slive had big shoes to fill. By the end of his 14-year reign in charge of the conference, Slive had stepped out and cast his own outsized shadow over the college football world.
Slive was a man who fought for both personal gain and the greater good
Just as he fought selflessly against cancer, Slive fought for the good of college football even while putting the SEC’s interests first and foremost.
The commissioner acted as the coordinator of the BCS from 2006 through 2008. Slive’s reign as the BCS coordinator came right as the system was expanding to introduce a fifth stand-alone championship game. The timing of Slive’s time leading the BCS also coincided with the beginning of the SEC’s streak of titles.
Slive was also an instrumental voice in the expansion into the College Football Playoff. An advocate for the “four best teams” model over a conference-champion system, Slive got his wishes. Before his passing, Slive saw his former conference take two of the four College Football Playoff spots thanks to the system he helped push through.
What Slive recognized more than most, however, was that a system that benefitted the SEC was also a system that would benefit college football as a whole. Increased opportunities for SEC teams to earn titles also meant that the door was open for any (major-conference) powerhouse to play their way in.
The rule that allowed Alabama into the Playoff this past season was the same rule that allowed Ohio State to get into the Playoff in 2016, after all.
Love or hate the SEC, Slive was a prime influencer in college football
Though it has been two years since Slive last served as the SEC commissioner, his legacy still looms large in college football. The FBS as we know it today was shaped in large part by his influence.
He is survived in death by Liz, his wife of 49 years, his daughter Anna, and his granddaughter Abigail. But Slive is also survived by the conference he helped build into the preeminent force in college football. He is also survived by the mid-major conference he helped build from scratch, as well as the College Football Playoff world at large.
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For a man who served in a position that drew a lot of ire, Slive remained a man of integrity throughout his career. It is the truest legacy of a life well lived in service to the world of sports that he loved.