NY Times · Dec 13, 2025
Roy Kramer, Transformational Executive in College Sports, Dies at 96
Roy Kramer was the head football coach at Central Michigan University when the team won the 1974 Division II national championship. He went on to become the athletic director at Vanderbilt and SEC commissioner.Roy Kramer, a former commissioner of the Southeastern Conference who turned it into a lucrative national power and, from that perch, transformed college football more broadly, helping to devise the Bowl Championship Series, a much-debated system for determining the national champion that endured for 16 years, died on Dec. 4 in Maryville, Tenn. He was 96.
His son, Steve, confirmed the death, in a hospital. Mr. Kramer lived nearby in Vonore, in eastern Tennessee.
