A gameday in the life of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey

George Schroeder | USA TODAY Sports

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The workout is known as "Jamie," and it is supposed to be completed in 25 minutes, and nothing about it resembles easy. After an 800-meter run, followed by 60 kettlebell swings (prescribed weight: 53 pounds), 40 burpee-pullup combinations and 20 strict presses (with 95 pounds on the bar), Greg Sankey is breathing hard. Sweating plenty. And hurting a lot.

Six days a week — 5:15 a.m. weekdays, with 7:30 a.m. on this Saturday representing an opportunity, he says, to sleep in — Sankey makes the short drive from his home in suburban Birmingham for an Iron Tribe Fitness class. The workouts vary, but they're generally intense, and leave some body part (or parts) in pain. Saturday morning, it is his arms, which he says are "cooked" afterward.

But the new SEC commissioner is stoked.

"Most days I have a win in my day before most people have their first cup of coffee," he says.

The workout is a staple of Sankey's schedule, an appointment with regularity. Likewise the quiet space he carves out just afterward for coffee at Starbucks, an opportunity to be alone with his thoughts. Otherwise, in his new role, there is no typical day — which he finds "pretty cool."

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Instead, there's a series of ever-changing agenda items. Meetings to take, tasks to complete, flights to make and more than occasionally fires to put out. And on days like Saturday, which began with the workout, ended 15 hours later after the final SEC football game was over and in between included a trip to Knoxville and back, there are also people to meet, hands to shake, photos to take, and more. That day Sankey granted USA TODAY Sports the opportunity to observe how he handles a typical Saturday in his new role.

Sankey, who assumed the job June 1 after Mike Slive's retirement, says he knew what to expect after working closely with Slive for years, the past few as the SEC's executive associate commissioner and chief operating officer. It also helped that he'd been commissioner of the Southland Conference before coming to the SEC. He was prepared.

"But until you're in that role, you can see it, you can be next to it and be near it, but it's much different to live it," he says. "The activity in the days just flies by. It's invigorating, exciting, challenging. There are good things, bad things — a lot more good things than bad things — but you just kind of lose track of time in a day, or maybe what day it might be."

It's why at various times Saturday, Sankey pecked away on a Surface tablet, working on a status report on his first 120 days as commissioner. As the search for Slive's replacement was underway, Sankey had written a detailed plan of issues and tasks that would have to be addressed and completed during the next year. In the near future, he'll update several groups on progress.

"There's days I leave and say, 'What did I get accomplished today?' " Sankey says. "But you look at this (status report), and there's a lot going on."

***

After the workout, breakfast and a shower, Sankey drives to the Birmingham airport, where a twin engine chartered flight awaits. Along with Steve Shaw, the SEC's officiating coordinator, and Herb Vincent, its associate commissioner for communications, he makes a one-hour flight to Knoxville for the Georgia-Tennessee game. Going to games isn't new, but the mode of transport is.

Until his promotion, Sankey traveled most weeks to SEC games as one of the conference's official representatives, but he either flew commercial or drove. Either way, he routinely fought traffic into and out of stadiums. Once, without a parking pass, he talked his way into a parking garage near Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium.

"Wear a necktie and carry a business card," he says, but then laughs. "It didn't work at Ole Miss."

That time, Sankey was turned away from a lot near the stadium. He wound up parking a mile away at a mall, then taking a shuttle to the game.

On Saturday, the shuttle is an unmarked Chevy Tahoe driven by a Knoxville police officer, who speeds down Alcoa Highway and uses blue lights to bull through traffic. At the stadium, Sankey is whisked a couple of blocks away by golf cart to an area where corporate tailgate parties are underway — Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is hosting one a few tents over — to mingle with current and potential SEC Network advertisers. As the golf cart stops, someone waves. Sankey walks over for a brief conversation with a Tennessee student he'd met several months earlier. Later in the day, Jon Ferrara tweets: "Not only did the Vols win but @GregSankey (SEC Commissioner) remembers me"

Later in the Neyland Stadium press box, another student greets the commissioner. Sankey remembers her, too. Like Ferrara, Ashlie Caldwell was among a group of interns Sankey met during the SEC women's basketball tournament last March. A few days later, he would be named the next SEC commissioner — assuming a position considered by many to be the most powerful in college sports — but until he introduced himself and initiated an impromptu pep talk/mentoring session, very few of the students knew who he was.

Sankey has long been well known to college sports insiders. Among many other things, he has served on the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions (currently as chairman). As Slive’s No. 2, he was among the leaders in developing the infrastructure for Power Five autonomy. But his profile has suddenly and exponentially grown.

It was wild enough, at SEC football media days last July, when someone asked him to autograph an 8x10 glossy photograph (Sankey’s first and lingering thought: Where does someone even find one?). But last month at dinner in Harry Caray’s in Chicago, someone asked him how life was different since he’d become commissioner. Thirty seconds into his answer, someone tapped him on the shoulder: “Are you Greg Sankey?” It was an Auburn graduate, having dinner with a South Carolina fan. They took a photo with Sankey. And last week in Indianapolis, walking into a restaurant with his daughter, someone yelled: “Greg!”

“It’s like being Norm in ‘Cheers,’ ” Sankey says.

***

Just before kickoff, Sankey ducks into the TV booth to say hello to CBS' Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson. In a hallway behind the press box, he huddles for several moments with Georgia president Jere Morehead and Tennessee chancellor Jimmy Cheek. Some of the discussion is Sankey's informal heads-up on the agenda for a scheduled presidents' meeting Monday in Atlanta — the first since Sankey's promotion.

During the game, Sankey multitasks. In addition to the Vols and Bulldogs, he watches LSU-South Carolina on his iPhone 6 Plus. He draws diagrams for former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, who is sitting next to him, to explain some recent officiating issues — and why, he says, the officials got it right. He checks emails, including the apparently automatically generated "red-card report" from the NCAA regarding a recent soccer ejection.

He edits a document for the upcoming presidents' meeting, discussing tweaks by phone with Chris Waldsmith, the SEC's assistant commissioner for finance. Seeing a highlight of Texas' post-game celebration — Charlie Strong being tossed aloft by his players — he asks: "Not many coaches in the NFL do you see being carried off on players' shoulders after a regular-season game, huh?"

Throughout the afternoon, Sankey adds notes to an index card. A sampling:

Check on Nick Chubb — "Because (Sunday) will get busy," he says, and he'll need a reminder to check on the status of the injured Georgia running back. It will probably involve a note to Chubb, like Sankey wrote to Arkansas' Jonathan Williams after he was injured in August.

Check on punt return — a reference to a Georgia return for a touchdown in which a flag was thrown, but no penalty was assessed for a block in the back (in Sankey's mind, it wasn't good optics). There's also a reminder to talk with Shaw, who has expressed concern about making sure the game clock is always prominently visible inside stadiums. Oddly, with all the video and computer enhancements, the clock sometimes gets lost — and at times isn't even on display.

Midway through the third quarter, Georgia faces fourth-and-1 in its own territory. Sankey asks Kramer, "What would you do?"

"I'd punt it," says Kramer, a former coach, just before Sony Michel gets 2 yards and the first down.

In the fourth quarter, with Georgia trailing by a touchdown, Kramer leans over to Sankey: "That wideout for Georgia can run by that defensive back for Tennessee anytime he wants." A couple of plays later, Greyson Lambert throws deep. Reggie Davis is a step beyond everybody, wide open. The pass is perfect. Davis drops it.

Moments later, Sankey, Shaw and Vincent head for the exits, trying to beat the crowd. At the elevator, Sankey sees Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart — he'd gone looking for him twice earlier, traversing the stairs to Hart’s skybox, but missed him — and they shake hands.

"Check off that box," he says.

***

The flight back to Birmingham is routine. Sankey spends more time working on that 120-day status report. He and Shaw discuss the punt return no-call and the clock issues, and Shaw also floats an idea for player safety.

Chubb's injury, which appeared to be a severe dislocation of his knee, occurred on the game’s first offensive play. Shaw noted a couple of linemen also left the field with what appeared to be tweaked knees, only to return later. Unlike Chubb, the linemen had been wearing knee braces. What if, Shaw says, every player is required to wear a knee brace?

“There’s no competitive disadvantage,” Shaw says.

But Sankey seems skeptical. When they reengage on the topic later, at the SEC offices, he suggests a lot more study would be necessary.

“The force will shift,” he says, referring in part to the torque that often contributes to knee injuries. “We don’t know all the dynamics.”

They're back in the SEC offices by 7:45 p.m., joining a crew of conference officials including executive associate commissioner Mark Womack to watch the second half of the Alabama-Arkansas and Missouri-Florida games on an array of flat screens in a room known as the "command center." Sankey surveys the room on the no-call punt return, then asks about an on-side kick in Mississippi State’s win over Troy. When the consensus is the calls were correct, Sankey asks:

"You guys aren't just telling me what I want to hear, are you?"

Shortly after 10 p.m., as Sankey continues to work on the 120-day status report, Florida's win against Missouri goes final. Moments later, he packs up and heads home.

He is up early again Sunday to take his wife Cathy to the airport for a 10-day trip to Rwanda, where she'll visit a child the couple sponsors through the organization Compassion International. Later he drives to Atlanta for a dinner with the SEC's presidents and chancellors. It's the first of two trips to Atlanta in a week in which he's also scheduled to be in Lexington, Ky., Dallas and College Station, Texas — and in the office only on Tuesday and Wednesday. It figures to be another string of atypical days, just the way Sankey likes it. In explaining why, he recalls something from a physical education class when he was a student at State University New York-Cortland.

"Burnout comes from doing the same thing over and over and over," Sankey says Phyllis McGinley told her class. "So her observation was, 'Whatever you do, don't do the same thing over and over and over.' So … I don't have that chance."

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