UTICA — Greg Sankey has been in college athletics for more than 30 years.

His career started in Utica in the late 1980s as director of intramural sports for then-Utica College.

Since then, his experience has included roles with two conferences, including serving as commissioner of the Southland Conference from 1996 to 2002. In 2002, he moved to the Southeastern Conference serving in a few different roles in the NCAA Division I organization. In 2015, he became the SEC’s commissioner, which is the top role in the conference. He succeeded the late Mike Slive, who was a Utica native.

In his role as SEC commissioner, Sankey has become one of the biggest movers and shakers in college athletics. He’s considered an advocate for student athletes in addition to guiding arguably one of the most well-known conferences in all of college sports. The SEC includes 14 schools in 11 states in the South and Midwest and will expand to 16 next year with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas.

There’s been much change in recent years around the NCAA with college expansion and Name, Image, Likeness as well as the transfer portal playing a role now.

During his visit to Utica, he talked about about two of the key issues in an interview with the Daily Sentinel.

Alteration of college athletics through conference expansion

“Going back to being (in Utica) when I was in graduate school and having the opportunity to study college sport in-depth, I learned a great deal through that. Movement of schools has taken place ever since conferences were created, whether it is the addition or the departure. If you take the SEC, in 1932 with 13 schools. Sewanee: The University of the South, Tulane and Georgia Tech are no longer members. We’ve added to to that over time. That’s not unique. If you watch the Big 10 with Penn State and they’re now going to touch both coasts. We think our approach regionally with highly visible universities is the right one to facilitate scheduling with every spot in a really efficient way to support education. Taking a step back from just conference membership, it is a really important time of change. What’s important is that we work to make certain the breadth of opportunities available now. The Olympic development and our Olympics support model that is based on college campuses and the ability to support educational outcomes that continues for the decades ahead. I think we’re going to judged collectively as leaders, not by decisions right now but by those in the years to come. We’ll look back and either do or do not have the kind of opportunities at a high level that we provide. That’s the challenge. The challenge is going to be are the states going to be the ones telling us how run championships or not? … Can the NCAA re-engage on some critical issues in a high-quality manner? Those are the realities."

The transfer portal’s impact

"If you take a step back, what happened pre-COVID, was the removal of restrictions on serving an academic year of residence. And, removing restrictions around communication and the destination of financial aid and whether or not we should have had those type of controls in college athletics is really immaterial. Now, we’re not going back to that. The portal is just a declaration page. How we structure the conduct during the time people want to transfer, that’s what the issue is and the focus needs to be. We’ve had transfer freedom. At the same time, we’ve had Name, Image, Likeness on a state-by-state basis and we’ve had COVID eligibility extensions. All of those are equally important to contributing to some of the change that we see. There were will be some level of correction when the athletes complete their time, which is nearing. We have to figure out the timing of these transfer declarations.”