(10-14-2014 08:42 PM)JRsec Wrote: (10-14-2014 06:52 PM)He1nousOne Wrote: Slive probably doesn't want to be part of all the headaches that are about to come with massive negotiations. DeLoss felt the same way at Texas.
Let someone else that is younger and has the energy for it go ahead and take the reins now before the season ends and "other stuff" begins.
No Heinous, Slive accomplished what he wanted and knows who to put in his place to finish the job.
Believe it or not, I think there's something to what Heinous is saying. While it seems clear that Slive's primary motivation for resigning is his advanced age combined with the recurrence of cancer, I'm not sure he wouldn't be resigning if he was 64 and clear of major health concerns.
Leaders like Slive are concerned with their legacies, and Slive understands that in leaving now, he is leaving while he is absolutely on top. He is almost universally revered as a 'genius' who has brought the SEC unprecedented power, status, and money. There really isn't anywhere to go from here but down.
Furthermore, I suspect Slive sees that things could go down, at least somewhat. I do not share this unalloyed adulation of Slive, and foresee that in the next few years, his failures, particularly the fundamentally bad TV deal he signed with ESPN in 2008, will become more obvious, particularly when the B1G signs their next round of deals in 2016. I believe those deals will expose the degree to which the SEC is 'owned' by ESPN and the amount of dollars Slive left on the table when he unwisely signed that 2008 deal rather than going the conference network route that this generation of conference commissioners true genius, Delany, took.
Also, on the field, the SEC's run of football national titles already has ended, and probably won't come back again, just because it was entirely unprecedented in the history of college football. The SEC will still be the best football conference, but will win a title every few years rather than almost every year. The rise of Mississippi and Mississippi State have shown what the huge new resources available to Power conference teams can do to build programs, and other P5 conferences will be getting these resources as well.
Slive may not want to be around for all that, so is leaving while he is on top.