SEC Commissioner Earns Academy Distinguished Service Award
Academy Curator Kay Daughdrill presents the Distinguished Service Award to SEC Commissioner Mike Slive.
The United States Sports Academy honored Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive with a Distinguished Service Award.
Since becoming commissioner of the SEC in 2002, Slive has addressed social issues by creating committees within the SEC designed to assist member institutions in the operations of athletic departments and to determine how athletics fit within the academic mission of the universities.
Slive was instrumental in the development of the Sportsmanship and Fan Behavior Summit, a national forum that brought together athletic, community and civic leaders to discuss sportsmanship and how to prevent inappropriate fan behavior. Under Slive’s direction, the SEC office distributed a database containing the names and biographies of every Division 1-A and NFL head coach and assistant coach to member institutions in an effort to promote diversity.
This year, the SEC schools have won National Championships in football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball, making the SEC the first conference in history to hold these three in the same year. In the 2005-’06 academic year, SEC schools won six team national championships, and were national runners-up in six other sports. Six teams participated in college football bowl games and six men’s and six women’s teams were invited to the NCAA Basketball Tournaments, in which Florida won the men’s national championship. An NCAA-high eight baseball teams advanced to the postseason. In addition to team accomplishments, 71 SEC student-athletes won national individual championships and 460 were first-team All-Americans.
Slive graduated from Dartmouth in 1962. He earned his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1965 and an LLM from Georgetown in 1966. A native of Utica, N.Y., Slive worked as a partner in the Chicago law firm of Coffield, Ungaretti, Harris & Slavin before becoming founder and senior partner of Mike Slive-Mike Glazier Sports Group in 1990.
Slive was the first commissioner of Conference USA when the league formed in 1995 and he was the commissioner of the Great Midwest Conference when it formed in 1991. He has also served as assistant athletic director for Dartmouth, as assistant Executive Director of the Pacific 10 Conference and as athletic director at Cornell.
The Distinguished Service Award (DSA) is given annually to those individuals who have made outstanding contributions to national or international sports through instruction, research or service. It has been presented by the Academy since 1984. Past honorees include Don Shula, Martina Navratilova, Harvey Schiller, Pat Summitt, Eddie Robinson, George Steinbrenner and Bud Selig. For more information, visit http://www.asama.org/awards.
Academy Award recipients are presented with the Academy's Order of the Eagle Exemplar medal and Academy Rosette. The Academy's Order of the Eagle Exemplar medallion was designed by the Academy's Sport Artist of the Year 1990, Blair Buswell. Award recipients are also presented with the Academy Rosette, modeled after the Legion of Honour instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. A rosette is a symbol of recognition and affiliation.
