Published: April 20, 2009 10:00 pm      

MARK MAYNARD: Conley on SEC, Adolph and more

RUSSELL — If you want your SEC fix next year, better make sure you’re affiliated with the ESPN family of networks.

That was the word from Larry Conley, a college basketball analyst who worked for Raycom the past few seasons, during Monday’s Boy Scout Leadership Luncheon at Bellefonte Pavilion.

Raycom’s contract with the SEC was for $60 million over 15 years, which translates into $4 million a year.

ESPN bought the SEC rights for $2.3 billion over 15 years, which translates into $150 million a year.

“Raycom got edged out by $146 million,” Conley said with tongue in cheek.

Conley, who was hired along with Dick Vitale in 1979 when ESPN first started, has announced college basketball and baseball games for the past 30 years. He’s best known for his keen observations during SEC basketball games, where he has become a favorite, especially in Kentucky.

He’s not sure where his career will take him, although “everybody at ESPN knows I’m interested in doing SEC games.”

The problem, though, he said, is twofold. For one, ESPN already employees a lot of announcers and the paygrade may not be what he’s used to getting through Raycom.

He anticipates doing some work for ESPN, but it may not be with the SEC package. Conley said if he were a young man, he’d be sending out tapes. “As old as I am, I think my body of work will have to stand on its own,” he said. “I am available and would very much like to do their games.”

Not everybody is going to be able to watch SEC games next season, though.

“You might have great difficulty this fall finding (SEC) football and basketball games,” he said. “They want to televise every sport the SEC has.”

He began listing them ... women’s basketball, baseball, gymnastics, equestrian ... on and on it went.

“Of course, there’s so many, they can’t do that,” he said. “They don’t have enough outlets.”

He said this fall, ESPN and ESPN2 would carry two SEC football games but the others from that day could be farmed out to additional ESPN family networks like ESPN Classic, ESPNU or ESPNNews.

“They’ll farm it out and it’ll be incumbent to you to find these games,” he said.

If your cable company doesn’t already carry the ESPN family of networks, better start calling, Conley said.

“People are going to want to see these games,” he said. “If they (the cable companies) don’t have these, you won’t have the opportunity to see these games.”

Time Warner offers all the ESPN networks in its expanded packages.

“You’ll get a chance to see a lot of sports you’ve never seen before if you want to watch it,” he said, referring to ESPN’s quest to show all SEC sports.

Conley said he expects to do about 25 games on ESPNU, although none may be SEC games. “My retirement fund has gone down so badly, I need two more years (of working),” he said.

t

Conley was asked about what it was like to play for Adolph Rupp.

“You have to understand what decade you caught him as a player,” Conley said. “In his 30s and 40s he was more of a tyrant than in his 60s. He got a little bit more tolerant of his players.”

But, oh, there were times when Rupp got under Conley’s skin.

“There were days when I hated that man,” he said. “Then there were those days when he’d walk up and say ‘You did a good job today.’ You’d walk around with your chest puffed out for a week anytime he praised you.”

Conley said he was demanding and fair, “pretty much what America is about.”

Rupp, who had a master’s degree in business from Columbia University, always read the Wall Street Journal before any other newspaper.

“He was a very bright man,” Conley said. “He taught me a lot of things and not just about basketball.”

t

Conley knew Rupp from his days as a young teenager when his father, George, an SEC referee, would take him to games in Lexington.

“I knew coach Rupp from the age of 12 on,” he said. “At 17, I got to be a pretty good basketball player. He said ‘You, obviously, want to play for me.’ He had the biggest ego of anybody I’ve seen my whole life.”

When Larry Conley came to UK, his father switched to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Conley said while he eventually settled on UK he did take a visit to Duke University with St. Xavier star Mike Silliman. Neither player ended up at Duke. Conley went to UK and Silliman to Army.

It was Silliman’s St. X team that defeated Ashland in the state finals in 1962.

t

Concering new coach John Calipari, Conley said he has noticed how happy Kentuckians seem to be with the move.

“I know everybody now is happy in the state,” he said. “You’ve got a new basketball coach and great anticipation of what’s going to happen next year.

“I didn’t get to know coach (Billy) Gillispie that well. He was a different person. Very strange.

As for how UK stars Patrick Patterson and Jodie Meeks may fare in the NBA draft, Conley said he doesn’t think either player would warrant a first-round selection right now.

That would be good news for UK fans, who would like to keep them around for another season.

Conley said he expects SEC basketball teams to have upgraded schedules next year. “They really need to improve their schedules,” he said. “They ranked at the bottom of the six big conferences last year. It’s a mandate. You’ll see an upgrade of all the schedules.”

t

Conley said Kentucky fans still rank as the most knowledgeable and most passionate about their basketball team.

It’s the same way about football in Alabama, he said.

“When you go to Alabama, football is about as big as Kentucky basketball is here,” he said.

He said Georgia was similar in its passion for football. “Their favorite sport is football and their second-favorite sport is spring football,” he said.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.