SEC media days began Monday morning at the Omni hotel in Dallas as they always do, with Greg Sankey giving his annual State of the SEC address.
This speech, stretching past 45 minutes, is his argument why college athletics' greatest conference is now even greater than before -- More WNBA All-Stars than any other conference! First in softball attendance, yet again! -- and his attempt to use his bully pulpit to push the various swirling winds of change in the SEC's direction. On that topic, there was more to discuss than ever, with both Congress and private equity threatening to further disrupt college athletics.
But Sankey also veered far out of the sports section of the proverbial newspaper to the front page. Though he didn't reference him by name, Sankey brought up the attempt on former President Donald Trump's life on Saturday night in Butler, Pa. And in typical fashion of the It Just Means More conference, Sankey used as a data point why the nation needs SEC football more than ever.
"When you attend one of those games on Saturday, you see Democrats and you see Republicans. You see liberals and conservatives. You see those who work in a white-collar setting, and those who work in a blue-collar setting. You see young and old, families and individuals, people of every religious background, every demographic range in this nation. And this sidebar is not about politics," Sankey said. "It's actually what we do about Saturday, that comfortable point of conversation at those family gatherings. These are remarks about the ability of people to come together, even when there are differences."
With what promises to be yet another contentious election playing out concurrently as the SEC's first football season as a 16-member conference -- Which is more important? Who can say? -- Sankey offered up his product as the perfect antidote to the mood-ruiner of discussing electoral politics in public, that comfortable point of conversation.
"We actually need more of what we do in college sports," Sankey said. "In college sports, and in college football in particular, we know there's an opponent on the field and spread across a stadium there's apparel from the opposing teams, one dominant, one in the minority, but in those stadiums, I've stood with sometimes 100,000 or more to sing the National Anthem, sometimes thinking that the entire stadium is actually participating.
"I've joined in those stadiums as you watch maybe a Chinook helicopter fly over or a B-2 bomber or an F-22, just amazed. Then celebrated a little bit later in the game when during the break we stop and we bring the flight crew onto the field and celebrate them for their service. I've heard the absolute silence in a crowd of thousands and thousands of people revved up and ready to go who stand for a moment to honor someone we've lost.
"We actually need more of those unifying moments in this country, and that's why I say, again, we need more of what college football does in this nation, not less. We need more of what college sports does because that unity I talked about and those variances that exist within a crowd aren't just in a football stadium.
"In fact, if you drove in on a morning to Hoover, Alabama, to our baseball tournament, you would see tents pitched with university logos and colors of a particular fan base, and it's not long before somebody else starts to trickle in, and I can recall this year seeing a South Carolina tent pitched right as I drove in, and underneath were Vanderbilt fans and Tennessee fans, gathered having a conversation. They're actually smiling despite being dressed differently."
Confession time: I agree with Sankey. I do what I do because I believe there's no better way to understand and celebrate America than to understand and celebrate college football. It's the most unique endeavor in this unique country.
And so after our nation all-too-narrowly avoided a Presidential assassination just a few days ago, and with a divisive election upon us, the SEC commissioner kicked off his league's biggest week of publicity by all but saying its our greatest patriotic duty to watch and enjoy college football this fall. And while we're all enjoying college football, we might as well start and end our Saturdays with the SEC.