The Southeastern Conference was proud and standing tall at its recent football media gathering. Mississippi State’s Sylvester Croom, the SEC’s first black football coach, came down the runway to the podium and the league stuck out its chest and thumped it twice.

Once the pioneer Croom departed center stage, the SEC got back to the business of mopping up another mess or two.

It was as if everything was shoved in the closet for 40 minutes. Croom left the mike and the morass came tumbling out at once.

• Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer ducked lawyers for fired Alabama football coaches fearing a subpoena.
• Georgia’s basketball program was decked by the NCAA for cheating because of a coach, who was hired to rave reviews by the university president.
• Mississippi State is waiting for the NCAA to hammer them because, we’re told, the Bulldogs and Jackie Sherrill were turned in by rival Ole Miss.

The SEC took one step forward with Croom and three steps back with the hijinks that is defining the conference once more as rogue.

Indeed, the SEC is the most penalized conference in Division I-A. Boosters and glad-handers and some assistant coaches operate in the shadows.

The head coach looks straight ahead and covers his ears. He doesn’t want to hear about it and usually doesn’t.

But he has to read all about it. Nine major infractions cases since 1991.

The SEC commissioner Mike Slive might have had two or three fires a week to hose down when he was CEO of Conference USA. Slive probably has two or three blazes a day to deal with in the SEC.

Boosters anxious to be part of a program are everywhere. The athletes know who these people are; they know where the boosters operate their stores or keep their office. They know the store hours. The kids know there could be certain favors while no one is watching.

It’s small stuff at first. Then it gets to be big stuff.

And it’s going to get worse. The NCAA is going to start backing off these investigations because of lawsuits.

The governing body of college athletics and its investigators are facing legal complaints from coaches, parents, and boosters. It is a get-even mentality NCAA CEO Myles Brand might not have been prepared for.

There is a solution.

Coaches like Croom have to step forward and quit looking the other way. I know, coaches tell boosters in public settings “don’t give our players anything.”

That works. For a day.

The coach goes back to business and so do the boosters.

This is what should happen. The next time Croom gets in front of a microphone he should replace the smile with a scowl.

The man needs to come back with a bullhorn and a badge and say what Fulmer would not say forcefully enough in his talk to the media at the SEC media event.

“Cheaters beware.”

Maybe he can be the symbol the SEC is moving forward on two fronts: diversity and corruption.

Coaches need to turn in coaches. That’s all there is to it. If it starts a skirmish or two at midfield during the post-game handshake, so be it.

Croom, the ground-breaking coach, needs to get some traction in the league with some wins and then turn on his brethren if they cheat. We’re assuming, of course, Croom is not crooked (he went to Alabama and played for Bear Bryant, so there had to be some exposure to cheating).

Busting boosters is not enough.

Croom showed what else is necessary when he showed up for one of his student’s classes one morning. The Mississippi State coach was sitting there when one of his players walked in 10 minutes late.

The player was up early — and on time — the next morning running until his tongue was hanging out. $100 bucks he’s not late for another class.

Croom has already booted one player off the team for slacking on academics. It was a good player, too, not a back-up.

I’m sure some public relations person is going to send me a list of all the things head coaches do for their players. I will immediately point to graduation rates and say “It ain’t working.”

You can’t count on presidents to do this stuff. You have to count on the guy with more clout in town, the football coach.

So far, I haven’t heard of an SEC head coach who has said publicly he will torpedo another program for cheating. Maybe they have said it, but it doesn’t stick out.

Tennessee’s Fulmer did it to Alabama, but he said the NCAA contacted him first. I listened to Fulmer’s teleconference with reporters in Birmingham last week and there was always the caveat, “The NCAA contacted me.”

Why not just say, “An Alabama assistant coach worked with an Alabama booster to recruit a high school player and I turned them in.”

Once Croom gets a foundation, he can’t be afraid to berate his peers.         

The school presidents, once thought of as the law on college campuses, can’t be trusted with the job. Georgia’s Michael Adams, goes out and hires Jim Harrick after Harrick’s problems at UCLA. The Harricks, Jim and Jim, Jr., screw up and get fired. Adams keeps his job. How does Adams get away with that?

The presidents of these schools lord over the college programs from sky suites, which are feathered nests for their most-cherished boosters.

The SEC’s coaches are a better source to stop the cheating because everyone wants to tell them something. They are persuasive men who can not only close the deal on teenagers in recruiting, they can demand of someone near their program to give them the straight story.

If they wanted to, SEC coaches could walk in to any establishment in town and tell the booster to shut off the favors for their players. I bet Croom will do it once it he uncovers the alleged favors pipeline in Starkville.

The SEC better hope the pressure to win doesn’t get to him. If it does, he will be just another hire.