SOMEWHERE OVER TEXAS — Greg Sankey's blue plaid sports coat is speckled with the white remnants of a funnel cake, and his brown slacks are blemished by a dollop of barbecue sauce.
SOMEWHERE OVER TEXAS — Greg Sankey’s blue plaid sports coat is speckled with the white remnants of a funnel cake, and his brown slacks are blemished by a dollop of barbecue sauce.
This, though, is a unique situation in which he’s attending two overlapping games 180 miles apart, one in Dallas and another in College Station, wedged between a friend’s wedding festivities on Friday and Saturday evenings in Austin, Texas. Earlier in the week, news of Sankey's planned trip here caused a stir, one more significant than he ever imagined.The Big 12’s own commissioner, Brett Yormark, wondered the same. The two discussed the matter while in Chicago at commissioner meetings two weeks ago. It’s understandable for Sankey to attend the game, Yormark told Yahoo Sports, because “it’s his future.”
His time here is a bizarre scene fitting of the industry’s current predicament — a commissioner of another league heralded, praised and thanked from each of the sparring fan bases as he parades across a football-crazed sea of humanity. Sure, this bespectacled man reads as many as 70 books a year, is a health-conscious marathon runner, a proficient note-taker and, as mentioned, a subdued dresser. He’s quietly bold and humbly proud, careful with his language and thoughtful with his actions.The truth is, he’s more blue-collar than his scholarly image portrays — the son and grandson of rural Northeastern welders, the product of a New York junior college whose family lived in mobile home parks until he was 11.
He returned home, enrolled at Cayuga Community College and played basketball there as a 6-foot-2, 180-pound jack-of-all-trades and “master of none,” he notes. It was then that he got serious with girlfriend Cathy, a local girl of whom he swept off her feet with a first date that featured mini golf and pizza. They’ve now been married 35 years.
Like Wooden, he’s a note-taker, filling a new journal every two to three months and then disposing of the old one in a cabinet at his home. His own personal archive dates back to a hand-scribbled calendar of events he made in 1989. McConaughey is the walking embodiment of the University of Texas, loud, proud, bold, extravagantly dressed and easily excitable. The juxtaposition of McConaughey and Mr. Notetaker, the two of them immersed in conversation, is quite a laughing matter.
Del Conte saddles alongside Sankey, gesturing to a crowd — half burnt orange and half crimson — that is boisterously giddy despite the 11 a.m. kickoff. “College athletics has stood apart from pro football,” Sankey says. “People will disagree and that’s fine, but there are differences and we saw them today.”
Of the more than 350 NCAA Division I athletic departments, only a small portion of them generate significant revenue, most of it from football, funds that are then pumped back into the department to support money-losing Olympic sports, million-dollar coaching salaries and facility upgrades. “When I got to CBS, Sean McManus and I had the idea of making them a national conference on CBS,” Petitti recalls. “That deal became the CBS 3:30 game.”
In a few months, the Big Ten and SEC’s relationship has turned from frosty to warm, sparked by the leadership change from Kevin Warren to Petitti in the spring. What the future holds is somewhat unclear, but both Sankey and Petitti have expressed an intent to both accelerate NCAA governance and condense the amount of schools operating under a single umbrella.
Having a subsection of programs governing themselves does not require small-league programs losing their golden goose: the automatic qualifying spot in the NCAA basketball tournaments. “I walked into the stadium and it hit me: I’m in charge,” he recalls. “One of those few times that I was overwhelmed by the role.”
That’s not the case with Petitti, like Sankey a fellow New Yorker. The two leaders have “touched on key issues” together, Sankey says.Sankey declines to reveal details of their discussions, but many within college sports believe that an SEC and Big Ten-led NCAA split may be the answer to NIL, opening the door for a more direct system of pay to players.
Appearing at the hearing as a witness will be NCAA president Charlie Baker, sources tell Yahoo Sports — a notable move from the association’s new leader.
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