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R. Bowen Loftin lays bare SEC move details

October 14, 2014
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Key quotes from Dr. R. Bowen Loftin interview

"What was interesting to me, when I wrote this thing with Rusty’s help, we thought we would be in a different world than we are right now. I didn’t think I would be where I am right now; it’s interesting how it all turned out."
 
"You have to understand the 1990s and the Southwest Conference breaking apart to really appreciate what happened many years later."
 
"Until I got to College Station, I really wasn’t dealing with a bunch of sports in my academic pursuits. I was primarily doing research education. At Texas A&M Galveston I got involved in sports, for a tragic reason with a sailing accident, but the step to College Station was a big one."
 
"Even in 2010 I began thinking about how this whole ordeal should be recorded for posterity but I really got serious about it in 2011. We had a number of people in leadership roles at A&M who really thought this was important and encouraged me to go forward and get this down on paper."
 
"Without Mike Slive’s leadership, this would not have happened. There were a lot of people who deserve credit and were at the right place at the right time. I knew in 2010 it would be a good fit but finally in 2011 everything fell together perfectly."
 
"In emails and texts and personal encounters I had, a lot of the older Ags, were fairly conservative and saw the PAC 10 as a better fit academically. I was always quick to point out all the land grant universities in the SEC. There were a lot of things that went into it being a fit."
 
"I tried to educate Baylor officials on the situation as much as I could. You look back, I told Ken Starr then that the Big 12 would work out fine without Texas A&M. I think it has worked out well for everyone."
 
"We all thought in 2012 that if we had a 6-6 season we would be happy. That season was a gift."
 
"When I met Powers in his office in 2010 I had to ask him about realignment. We had a similar conversation in my office a month later.  It was very clear that conversations were going on but there were still things I didn’t understand or know. We weren’t in control of our own destiny, which was the biggest problem."
 
"We were really stunned with the details the PAC 10 had worked out in 2010. They had schedules for pretty much all of our major sports well into the future and had plans for a whole 16-team league with a north and south division. It was very clear that they had spent a lot of time on this and had many discussions about it, ones that we were not a part of."
 
"Mike Slive quickly got to Texas and we had a meeting near Houston after I initiated conversation. They had taken the time together to go through and show me how we fit. They had a very nice presentation on the brand new Apple iPads comparing us to the other schools in the conference. He was basically saying, 'Loftin, you fit.'"
 
"Two things struck me, the students from the Jackie Sherrill era were very interested in the SEC and our current students were too. They watched the SEC on TV and saw the excitement, they saw how good the fit was, maybe better than anybody."
 
"I take no personal pride in all of this, I’m just proud of my school. I’m a Texas Aggie and am proud that we were in the right place in history."
 
"We all would have been happy with a few SEC wins in the first year. All of us assumed the changes would be good but it would take a while. We all concurred that Kevin Sumlin had all the features to be the guy at Texas A&M."
 
"Mike Sherman was not happy going into the SEC and that was clear to me. Coaches do not like change like that. They have so many variables and they want to control what they can. I talked to several coaches about it to get their opinion in 2010. I didn’t do that in 2011, we knew what we needed to do and that was move forward. Mike is a great man. I love him dearly and my wife really respected him too. But he wasn’t the kind of guy we needed, not just for the SEC but also for our team. The big thing for me was how do you get in the head of an 18-20 year old young man. When he told me that he lacked senior leadership, in his fourth year, that was the straw that broke the camels back."
 
"We went through a difficult period as a university and now we are in a better place. The visibility of Texas A&M as an extraordinary school had to recognized and that was the number one reason for the SEC move."
Discussion from...

R. Bowen Loftin lays bare SEC move details

10,494 Views | 5 Replies | Last: 9 yr ago by aggiepanther
Gabe Bock
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AG
R. Bowen Loftin lays bare SEC move details
fishinaggiegirl
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AG

Not_A_Golfer
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AG
I still can't believe that he's gone.
Restco
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Yes, he's gone. But, WHY?

I have never heard an explanation, especially one sufficient to justify losing one of the best administrators of this generation.
coupland boy
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AG
So a certain coach said we lacked senior leadership every year he was here. Interesting.
aggiepanther
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AG
is anyone having trouble playing the audio, it just stops after 30 seconds
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