The Southeastern Conference
By Matt Shetler
The SEC was founded in 1932 when the
thirteen members of the Southern Conference left to form their
own conference. The SEC consists of twelve members that compete
in seventeen Division I sports. The SEC headquarters is located
in Birmingham, Alabama and the commissioner of the conference is
Michael Slive, a post he has held since 2002.
Ten of the charter members have remained in the conference:
Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi,
Mississippi State, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. The other three
charter members were: Sewanee (left in 1940 and no longer
emphasizes athletics), Georgia Tech (left in 1964) and Tulane
(left in 1966). The SEC added the University of Arkansas and
University of South Carolina in 1991, expanding from ten to the
current twelve members.
The SEC is recognized as the most successful conference in the
nation, both on the field and financially. Since 1990, the SEC
has averaged six national titles a year and leads all
conferences in revenue distributed to its members.
The SEC was a founding member of the BCS and has ties to nine
bowl games: the Sugar Bowl, Capital One Bowl, Outback Bowl,
Cotton Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Music City Bowl,
Independence Bowl and starting in 2008, the Papajohns.com Bowl.
The conference splits its teams into two divisions, East and
West. The winners of each meet in the SEC title game, held in
Atlanta, Georgia. The SEC was the first conference to play a
title game, getting permission from the NCAA to do so in 1992.
SEC football produces some of the great rivalries in existence:
Alabama-Auburn (The Iron Bowl), Auburn-Georgia (The Deep South’s
Oldest Rivalry), Georgia-Florida (The World’s Largest Outdoor
Cocktail Party), Florida-Tennessee (the Third Saturday in
October), and Tennessee-Kentucky (The Border Bowl) are among
these. A new rivalry dubbed The Saben Bowl got started in 2007
between LSU and Alabama. The Crimson Tides head coach Nick
Saben was the former coach of the Tigers, jumpstarting this
rivalry.
The SEC has excelled in other sports than football. Tennessee’s
Lady Vols is perhaps the best women’s basketball program of all
time and the Kentucky Wildcats have won more games than any
other program in NCAA men’s basketball history (as of 2008).
Since its inception in 1932, the SEC has won a total of 161 team
national championships.
