He was a giant in the industry of college athletics. The SEC Network is a huge accomplishment. One of the major accomplishments I credit to Mike Slive is convincing all of the ADs and Football Coaches of the SEC that they should stop the infighting and function as a cohesive conference. Before Mike Slive everyone in the SEC was turning everyone else in the SEC into the NCAA for recruiting violations all of the time. He convinced them that this hurt the overall conference reputation and in turn each of them. They stopped doing it after that. I credit Mike Slive for that leadership in the SEC.

After he did that is when we started getting the SEC! SEC! SEC! hype. Before that it was every man to himself.