Missouri Tigers

Slive shares insights on SEC's addition of A&M, Missouri

Published Jun. 8, 2015 11:35 p.m. ET

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May 31 marked the end of an SEC era, as commissioner Mike Slive retired after a remarkable 13-year tenure that included conference expansion, the launching of the SEC Network, a pivotal role in the creation of the College Football Playoff and more.

Slive, while packing up his office last Friday, spoke with Stewart Mandel of FOX Sports for Monday's edition of "The Audible" podcast and shared his thoughts and insights on all those topics and more, with one of the more interesting anecdotes relating to the SEC's addition of Texas A&M and Missouri.

The 74-year-old Slive said that, initially, the SEC was perfectly happy to stand aside during the conference expansion craze, which started in 2011.

"We were on the sidelines pretty much. Our presidents and chancellors had said to me that they didn't want me to be involved in trying to take a school from another league. ... We weren't initiating at that point in time."

But a simple phone call changed everything, Slive told Mandel.

"It was the end of the second of three days of media days and I was sitting on my porch having a cigar saying, 'Boy, I've only got one more day,' and I got a call from the then-president of Texas A&M saying they would like to talk to us. And then a similar thing happened with Missouri, I don't know how many months later, I can't remember now.

"And as it turned out, our expansion was very helpful to us in every way. ... In particular it gave us a shot in the arm to think about a network."

The Texas A&M president at the time was R. Bowen Loftin, who has to be thrilled to this day that he made that phone call -- and there are undoubtedly a number of other folks at both A&M and Missouri who feel the same way.

When asked by Mandel whether there was any trepidation about the addition of the two schools, Slive pointed out that both institutions brought the full package that the conference required in order to seriously consider expansion.

"Our presidents were interested in quality institutions, and of course both of these institutions are AAU institutions, they both have -- when you think about it -- they're high-quality academic institutions, they have broad-based athletic programs and they have passionate fan bases. Those are sort of the attributes of our schools, so our presidents and chancellors focused mostly on the academic side and what that would bring and how it would help us, knowing that the athletic side was there. ... Even though we were content (at 12), we were happy to add them."

Listen to the rest of the fascinating podcast below or click here for the full story.

Image credit: Kelly Lambert-USA TODAY Sports

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