Greg Sankey on accountability for SEC officials: ‘There are limits to transparency’
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With the ACC already providing its fans with live look-ins at conversations between referees and the review booth and the Big 12 set to follow suit this fall, the pressure is mounting on other leagues to provide more transparency when it comes to controversial decisions.
Obviously, the SEC is one of the kings of college football when it comes to impactful calls, and fans of the league are hoping Greg Sankey & Co. will begin to take their complaints more seriously.
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But at SEC Media Days on Monday, Sankey emphasized all of the work the SEC is already doing to encourage stronger refereeing practices, referencing the test-run of the MLB’s ‘ABS’ system at this year’s baseball tournament.
“Every week officials go on the football field, the basketball court, softball field, baseball field, and everything they do is transparent, everything they do is transparent. You can’t hide if you put on an officiating uniform,” Sankey said. “We’ve added — in fact, we’ve been the innovators in replay with the motivation to get it right. That provides transparency, as well. In fact, we’re the conference that implemented at the collegiate level in our tournament the automated balls and strikes format. Can’t be any more transparent than that reality. We pushed that to seek the opportunity to allow that in the regular season.”
However, Sankey did explain that there have to be limits in order to protect the safety and livelihoods of referees, with him drawing a comparison to how athletes don’t lose a scholarship for committing an in-game mistake.
“We’ll continue to do that, but there are limits to transparency,” Sankey said. “When an error is made in a game, scholarships are not pulled for a player for one incident, they don’t lose their starting job. So every week we provide feedback to officials. We don’t publish that.”
Sankey closed his statement by expressing his admiration for those that are willing to take the full brunt of the SEC’s coaches, players and fans on a week-to-week basis.
“I also have a great deal of respect for people that are willing to put themselves in the venues of the Southeastern Conference to conduct that activity. I think we have found a reasonable balance. Reasonable people can disagree with that,” Sankey said. “The elements that we’ve added and the steps we’ve taken to try to get it right are evidence of our motivation and our willingness, quite candidly, to be transparent.”
Parker is currently the sports editor for Gulf Coast Media in Foley, Alabama. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
