Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey appeared as a guest on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Thursday at the end of the 2022 SEC Media Days.
Sankey offered up that Alabama football coach Nick Saban ruined his day by attacking Texas A&M football head coach Jimbo Fisher and Jackson State football head coach Deion Sanders with comments in mid-May.
Saban said that Fisher had “bought every player on their team” to obtain the top-ranked 2022 recruiting class. Saban also said, “Jackson State paid a guy a million dollars last year that was a really good Division I player to come to school. It was in the paper. They bragged about it. Nobody did anything about it.”
On Thursday, Sankey and Paul Finebaum were discussing the conference realignment that occurred in June with USC and UCLA going to the Big Ten Conference. That led to discussing the ensuing rumors of new teams joining the SEC, and Sankey talked about how much the rumors bothered him.
SEC’s Greg Sankey says Nick Saban ruined his day in May
“I had a friend a long time ago — it was actually around a Honey Badger story in Sports Illustrated about something around recruitment that wasn’t entirely informed or accurate — and so one of my friends, we were working out, said, ‘Does that just like ruining your day?'” Sankey said. “I said, ‘There’s a time that it would.’ And there are certain things that do ruin my day.”
“I don’t want to ask what those are,” Finebaum said in response.
“Well, I’ll tell you in mid-May I was in New York City, it was 11 o’clock at night and I’d been at an awards event,” Sankey said. “I didn’t win the award and neither did our league win the award. And then the phone rang about something that got said in Birmingham. So there’s an example of a ruined day.”
“That was a tough night’s sleep for a lot of people,” Finebaum said.
“Yeah, it happens, and we’ve managed forward,” Sankey said.
Saban made his comments on May 18 at an event promoting the World Games 2022 Birmingham. The event was at The Fennec in Birmingham, Alabama.
On May 18, Sankey was at the Sports Business Awards at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square. Sankey was nominated for Sports Executive of the Year, and the SEC was nominated for League of the Year.
The SEC issued public reprimands for both Saban and Fisher on Thursday, May 19. Fisher had a fiery response to Saban on that Thursday morning.
Here’s more Nick Saban news:
The 2022 SEC Media Days took place from Monday through Thursday at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
Erik Hall is the lead digital producer for sports with the USA Today Network. You can find him on Twitter @HallErik.