SBJ College: Peevy Talks Path To DePaul AD Role

Two days and counting until the first college football game of the season.

Here is what's cookin' on campus.

NEW DEPAUL AD LOOKS BACK ON LONG PATH TO TOP JOB

• DeWayne Peevy was a wide-eyed, young sports information director at D-II Montevallo when he took a call from Charles Bloom about a job in the SEC office. Bloom set him up to interview for a media relations position with Commissioner Roy Kramer. Peevy was certain that Kramer knew nothing about him or the small Alabama school where he worked. But when Peevy entered Kramer’s office, there were nine Montevallo media guides (edited by Peevy) spread across the commissioner’s desk, and he soon was hired.
  
  
• That’s one of many underdog tales Peevy told me today as he chronicled his path from Montevallo to the SEC, Kentucky and now Chicago, where this week he was named AD at DePaul. Peevy had spent the last 12 years at UK, most recently as Deputy AD, and had become John Calipari’s most-trusted confidante. When the DePaul job came open, Peevy went to Calipari, who called it a sleeping giant.
  
  
• I got the impression that Peevy was still pinching himself today. He was in a great spot at UK, so he seldom felt the pressure to jump at AD jobs, but he thought his basketball background would be an asset at the Big East school. He also expressed an earnest desire to do well for the minority administrators who will follow him.
  
  
• “It’s not the same path for everyone,” Peevy said. “When I met with Commissioner Kramer, I told him that I wanted to be a major D-I AD. I didn’t even know what that meant or the path to get there. I was fortunate that some people were willing to look a little deeper and give me a shot. I want to prove there’s no cookie-cutter system to get to this point.”
  
  
• Glenn Sugiyama of DHR International led the search for DePaul.

ONLY A FEW CFB TEAMS CANCEL PRACTICE IN PROTEST

• The protests and boycotts that have dominated the last 24 hours in the NBA, WNBA, MLS and MLB barely trickled into the college space today. Kentucky, Boston College and USF were the first college football teams to cancel practice, citing the Jacob Blake shooting. BC and USF canceled earlier in the day, while UK walked off the field after practice had started.
  
  
• I expect there to be more reaction in the coming days. This has been a year in which college athletes have found their voice and they’ve begun to wield their considerable influence. I trace the movement back to Florida State football player Marvin Wilson, who publicly challenged new coach Mike Norvell and forced the first-year coach to apologize over an inaccurate tweet. There have been many more impactful examples since then.
  
  
• Just as Kentucky’s players left the practice field to talk about their next steps, which included posting a message on the team's Twitter feed, other teams are having similar meetings to determine how they will approach the latest incident involving excessive police force. Just like their counterparts in the NFL, college football players are counting down the days to the start of the season, meaning each practice increases in importance by the day. But when the college athletes see NFL players halting practice to acknowledge the Blake shooting, they will be influenced to do the same.

The Kentucky football team posted this pic and message on Twitter after cancelling practice

FOOTBALL IS BACK! (SORT OF)

• This Saturday night, the eyes of the nation will be fixed on Montgomery, Ala., where Austin Peay and Central Arkansas will open the college football season. OK, that’s an exaggeration. I’m not sure how many people will actually watch the game on ESPN, but there is something worth celebrating that college football got to this point when it seemed so unlikely.
  
  
• ESPN’s schedule grows to three games on Sept. 5, and BYU-Navy will punctuate Week 1 of the season in what is normally a marquee ratings window for college football -- primetime on Labor Day (Sept. 7). ACC play begins Week 2 on Sept. 12.

SPEED READS

• The ACC announced its 20-member advisory committee that will aid Ventura Partners and Turnkey Search in the conference's search for a commissioner to replace the retiring John Swofford. The committee will be co-chaired by two university presidents -- Nathan Hatch (Wake Forest) and Rev. John Jenkins (Notre Dame). Five ADs are part of the committee: Kevin White (Duke); Blake James (Miami); Heather Lyke (Pitt); Carla Williams (Virginia) and John Wildhack (Syracuse).
  
  
• Among the Power 5 conferences set to play this fall, it looks like COVID testing protocols are becoming more standard, per CBS Sports. The Big 12, SEC and Conference USA will enter the 2020 season with plans to test three times during game weeks. A source also said that the ACC is "close to a similar announcement." How much will each school pay for such testing? One example can be found down at Texas A&M. The Bryan-College Station Eagle notes the school will pay approximately $1.5 million for fall testing -- money that comes out of the athletic department's coffers.
  
  
• The 2022 men's NCAA Final Four. The Sugar Bowl and New Orleans Bowl (annually). Those are some of the bigger college events that Superdome and Saints officials can point to when talking to prospective naming-rights sponsors for the venue. Mercedes-Benz will not renew its deal when it expires next year. SBJ's Ben Fischer today reported that after the Saints originally planned to pursue a deal using an in-house team, the club will now solicit an agency to handle the negotiations. Sources said Elevate Sports Ventures, WME Sports, Excel Sports Management and Oak View Group are expected to be among those companies interested.
  
  
• Clemson football hasn't averaged fewer than 80,000 fans since 2011, but, like most schools, drastically-reduced attendance will be the case this season. The school today announced that Death Valley will have about 23% capacity (19,000 fans) for home games this fall. Conversely, Pitt announced that no fans will be allowed for home games at Heinz Field in September.
  
  
• UCLA has filed a lawsuit against Under Armour that seeks more than $200 million in damages, according to the L.A. Times. The school alleges UA defrauded the school by embellishing its financial standing before luring the Bruins into a record $280-million contract that it breached by failing to make scheduled payments or deliver its product as promised. 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

• It was this week in 2008 that Clemson and Alabama squared off in the inaugural Chick-fil-A Kickoff in Atlanta. The whole idea, as Atlanta Sports Council President Gary Stokan explained it, was to stage a high-profile game that would focus the eyes of the nation on one site to open the college football season.

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Something on the college beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (msmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).