Aura of SEC offers escape from daily drudgery

Published 6:40 am Tuesday, July 12, 2016

HOOVER, Ala. — Maybe tomorrow the phenomena known as Southeastern Conference football will shake off the doldrums and do its civic duty.

You know the drill — sports as an escape for life’s daily drudgery, a respite from real-world problems, an outlet to just forget about it and by all means … Roll Tide!

That’s really the point, isn’t it?

And no sport has a psychic hold on its constituency quite like SEC football, where face-painted grown men are currently jostling for position at the foot of the Hyatt Wynfrey escalator, bumping around in dogged pursuit of 20-year-old kids’ autographs.

The conference even unveiled a new logo/tag line Monday, a curious little jingle that states: “SEC: It Just Means More.”

You can almost hum it.

Nobody is quite sure what it means, but nobody doubts it’s true.

The aura of SEC football often does feel like some kind of fantasy camp, an escape from reality.

This annual gathering, SEC Media Days 2016, is sort of the unofficial kickoff to the season, albeit well in advance, but still a sign that football is finally at least out there on the horizon, and soon life’s priorities will be reduced to locating a tailgating spot, angst over alternative uniforms and finding LSU a serviceable quarterback.

Monday, though … not quite so much.

It may take another day or two for the real world to go away, for the focus to zero in on which SEC coach was trying to one-up another with his shoe wear.

Commissioner Greg Sankey had the usual brag sheet prepared for his annual State of the SEC speech in the grand ballroom, but tore up those notes.

He said he’d leave details of the league’s new “collaborative replay” plans to the league’s director of officials later in the week.

Instead, Sankey felt compelled to comment on the “sadness of the past few days,” specifically the shootings and subsequent tension in Baton Rouge, in Dallas and in Minnesota.

“It’s on all of our minds,” Sankey said.

He quoted neither Bear Bryant or Nick Saban or Lee Corso.

Instead, drawing from Nelson Mandella, the New Testament and Pete Seeger of The Byrds there were pleas for “a time to love, a time for peace, a time to embrace.”

That doesn’t sound much like SEC football, not the Iron Bowl at least.

There was barely a mention that Alabama is once again the defending football national champions.

The four-ring media extravaganza would move along into football soon enough.

But first Sankey, forgetting for the moment that virtually every player in the SEC seems to be on some kind of postseason award “watch list,” instead wanted to talk about the amazing things happening in the classroom … and beyond.

Reading, ’riting and ’rithmatic seemed to be the least of it.

At least one SEC player, Sankey pointed out, spent the summer doing medical work in Belize, another doing the missionary thing in Haiti during spring break, yet another running a children’s camp in Nicarauga.

You wonder if the coaches’ biggest problem in the coming years will not be having players leave early for the NFL — they will be declaring for the Peace Corps.

“Sports brings people together,” Sankey said. “I think our universities do, as well, and we need to be mindful and attentive to that reality and the opportunities associated with that.”

Kum Bah Yah, with a big Hotty Toddy on the side.

So then the Q&A started.

And the first question Sankey was asked, in light of the league’s tough new rule prohibiting its schools from accepting transfers with a record of domestic violence, was how could schools still allow incoming freshmen with similar crimes to enroll, basically no questions asked.

Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen, in particular, no doubt will get grilled on that one when his turn at the podium comes.

But Sankey warned against “judging one’s character on 10 seconds of video,” hence the controversy over linebacker Jeffrey Simmons enrollment at Mississippi State.

He did point out that the indiscretions of incoming freshmen would have been in their “juvenile past.”

“When someone enrolls in college, they are generally an adult,” he said. “You’d expect to have access to more consistent information on which to base decisions (when they’re already in college).”

There was more.

What, Sankey was asked, happens if the tensions from the recent protests spills over onto the gridiron.

NFL teams in recent years have made protest statements, such as the St. Louis Rams taking the field with their hands up following the riots in Ferguson, Mo.

What would the SEC’s policy be for similar stances?

Sankey said he viewed SEC football as campus leaders, “engaged in conversation with campus leadership.

“Let’s not go running down a road predicting particular outcomes.”

If ever a football season needed to get here, maybe it’s this summer.

Still, for now, the SEC is still trying to escape the real world’s problems.

Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at twitter.com/ScooterAmPress