Roy Kramer, who was athletic director at Vanderbilt from 1978 to 1990 and then turned the Southeastern Conference into a lucrative national power as commissioner, died Dec. 4, 2025, in Maryville, Tenn. He was 96.
Kramer attended Maryville College, where he was an offensive lineman on the football team and a wrestler. His education was interrupted by Army service in the Korean War. When he returned from active duty, he earned a bachelor’s in physical education from Maryville in 1953 and a master’s in education from the University of Michigan the next year.
His coaching career began in Michigan high schools, where his teams won three state championships before he joined Central Michigan University’s football staff in 1965 as an assistant coach. He was named Central Michigan’s head coach in 1967. Through 11 seasons, the Chippewas compiled an 83-32-2 record and won the Division II national championship in 1974. Kramer was named the Division II national coach of the year in 1974 and elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2023.
Vanderbilt hired him as athletic director in 1978, and he transformed the athletics department and its facilities. While at Vanderbilt, he was a member of a committee of college officials that negotiated a seven-year, $1 billion contract for CBS to carry the NCAA men’s basketball tournament from 1991 to 1997.
He was named commissioner of the SEC in 1990. During his 12 years at the helm of the conference, he engineered spectacular growth in its revenue—derived from television rights, bowl games and other income sources. In 1990, the conference shared $16 million with its schools; when Kramer retired in 2002, the figure had sextupled. As SEC commissioner, he pioneered conference expansion, conference football championship games and the postseason Bowl Championship Series for Division I college football.
Sara Jo Emert Kramer, his wife of 62 years, died in 2013. Survivors include son Steve Kramer, daughters Sara Gray Mackin and Janie House, six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
