By DAVID JONES
Florida Today

New Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive once was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect college football programs in trouble.

While working as an attorney in New Hampshire, he teamed up with former NCAA investigator Michael Glazier to form one of the most powerful advising firms college sports has ever known, representing schools such as Florida and ringing up bills in the millions.

A decade later, he finds himself defending colleges in a different capacity. Over half the schools in his 12-team league were questioned by NCAA officials in the past year. The SEC's image has been sorely damaged, with Alabama and Kentucky both on probation for recruiting improprieties. No one rests comfortably in the conference these days.

"There are other great conferences in the country with great academic institutions that have very serious problems," Slive said. "But they don't seem to impact the conference as much as they do here. Our goal is to put these behind us."

In the last few years, recruiting got so shaky in the SEC that coaches started turning on each other.

During the 2000 league meetings in Destin, Fla., Georgia's Jim Donnan, Florida's Steve Spurrier and Arkansas' Houston Nutt met with SEC officials to discuss the recruitment of Memphis prep star Albert Means by Alabama.

The subject eventually landed the Crimson Tide on probation, after an NCAA investigation revealed allegations that a booster had paid a high school coach thousands of dollars to help 'Bama land Means.

The alleged price tag: $200,000.

A laundry list of Alabama recruiting violations was uncovered during the NCAA investigation, costing then-coach Mike DuBose his job and taking a toll on his replacement, Dennis Franchione, who left in December for Texas A&M rather than deal with Alabama's five-year probation, loss of 21 scholarships and two-year bowl ban.

At Kentucky an NCAA report revealed details of attempts by former Wildcats' football coaches to lure recruits through paying various expenses such as meals and hotel rooms while on unofficial visits, giving high school players money and gifts, paying for hotel telephone calls and in-room movies, even sending cash to high school coaches.

The head coach at the time, Hal Mumme, was fired.

Slive was named the league's new commissioner over the summer, replacing the retired Roy Kramer. He's made it clear that the SEC's recruiting practices must be cleaned up.

"Just rest assured we're watching," Slive said, when asked if the cheating would continue.

For the most part, other SEC coaches feel recruiting has been cleaner this time around, as they prepare for Wednesday's national signing day. And yet, when you read between the lines, you can hear some uneasiness remains.

"I think, for the most part, programs that we recruit against are first-class programs," Florida coach Ron Zook said. "Everybody's always trying to find the edge and do everything that they possibly can do to sell their program. But I think for the most part, the recruiting is . . . it's cut-throat a little bit but I think that's just like politics or anything else."

LSU coach Nick Saban isn't quite as diplomatic.

"I think there's some (cheating)," he said. "I think it's limited to a few schools that still do it. But I think, for the most part, people try to do things the right way."

Saban says the SEC should no longer tolerate negative recruiting against other schools. He says it's becoming a big problem in college recruiting - even though it's not illegal.

Some coaches will talk about Bobby Bowden's age when they're recruiting against Florida State. Some will talk about Miami being loaded with players, telling recruits they'll get lost in the shuffle. And if a program didn't have a big season, such as Florida this past season, they can claim Ron Zook's job is in trouble.

And it's easy to pick on a program like Alabama that's on probation and ineligible for a bowl bid in 2003.

"I can be honest with you," Saban said. "I don't know anything about anyone else's school. So I don't think I have a lot of credibility by standing around trying to tell some kid what they have at Alabama or Auburn or Florida or wherever because I wouldn't know how to get to the facility if I went there to visit.

"And there's a lot of that that goes on and I don't think that speaks well for anybody or any of us as professionals. I have a lot of respect for all the other coaches in the league and the programs that they have and I think they all do good things."

Saban would like to see more recruiters take that attitude.

"I think we do good things for our players here and to try to paint a picture to a young man, that is trying to make a decision about where to go to school, in a negative light, I don't think that is what college football is all about," he said. "I don't think it's what we should do.

"I think that the honesty and the integrity and the values that we have as college football coaches should supercede getting any one player. For us to compromise those principles and values to get one single player . . . to me, we're losing sight of what we're trying to accomplish for the players themselves that we're trying to recruit and help develop as people, students and players. So it doesn't make any sense to me."

Still, the practice continues. South Carolina's Lou Holtz knows of coaches who've pushed recruiting too far in the SEC.

"I think there will always be some people trying to gain an edge in things like that," Holtz said. "I felt like there were one or two schools in this conference that there were some strange things happening, where a guy commits to one school and was definitely going to go. And all of a sudden, two days later, he's going to go to another school. Well, what entered into the equation about changing his mind? . . . That's the only time you get nervous."

There are a lot of nervous coaches in the SEC this recruiting season. But now, it's not the ones that have a clean history that are worried. It's the ones Mike Slive might have his eye on that are a little uptight these days. As he said, he's watching.