SEC does things "exceedingly well," commissioner tells Greater Shelby Chamber

Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey had a message to deliver at the 35th annual meeting of the Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

“We do things exceedingly well" in the SEC, the leader of the conference told chamber members at the luncheon meeting at the Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena.

Sankey, who was chosen to replace Mike Slive as commissioner on June 1 of last year, said being the conference's eighth commissioner is "a very different reality than I expected.”

He lauded the efforts of the conference to do things the right way and spent much of his speech recognizing individual student-athletes for their exploits outside of competition, a side many do not see.

“If you educate well and compete successfully, you can change the world,” said Sankey, who has lived in Shelby County since 2002.

A few of the examples Sankey gave will be familiar to many football fans in the area. He mentioned Da’Shawn Hand, a defensive lineman on the University of Alabama football team. Hand helped the Crimson Tide to its 16th national championship, but Sankey noted how Hand is also an engineering major.

Kris Frost, a senior linebacker on the 2015 Auburn football team, is a student of aviation management, not your run-of-the-mill major for a high-profile football player.

Malcolm Mitchell, a wide receiver on the football team at the University of Georgia, joined a reading group and has written a book.

Sankey’s final example to drive home the point was Thomas Davis, a linebacker for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, who will compete in Super Bowl 50. Davis attended Georgia but left early to pursue a career in the NFL. He has since completed his degree since beginning his professional career.

The two quarterbacks in this year's Super Bowl, Peyton Manning and Cam Newton, were not only players, but also graduates of the University of Tennessee and Auburn, respectively.

Manning elected to stay for his senior year, while Newton left early but came back to Auburn each spring to earn his degree.

Sankey left each visitor a small card with the following vision of the SEC: “Educating scholars and supporting champions provides the platform for developing leaders who will influence the world.”

Also at today's annual meeting of the Greater Shelby County Chamber, the 2015 chairwoman of the chamber's board of directors, Lisa McMahon of the Warren Averett CPA firm, passed the gavel to the new chairman, Paul Rogers of NobleBank & Trust.