Longtime Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer announced March 12 that he will retire after 12 years at one of the most prominent leagues in college sports.

The SEC indicated that Kramer, who is 72, would remain as commissioner of the league until a successor is chosen. No timetable was given for selecting a new commissioner.

Kramer has overseen SEC sports since 1990 and has crafted television and marketing deals for the league that has made it one of the most elite financially in Division I.

He also is well known as one of the creators of college football's Bowl Championship Series, a computerized system used to determine an annual match-up of the top two teams in a national championship game that rotates among the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls. Kramer became head of the BCS committee in 1995 and served in that capacity for two years.

Kramer's conference also was the first to institute a league championship game in football, which began in 1992.

Before assuming the top job at the SEC, Kramer was the athletics director at Vanderbilt University from 1978 to 1990.

Kramer earned a bachelor's degree from Maryville College (Tennessee) in 1953 and was a student-athlete there in football and wrestling. He went on to earn a master's degree at the University of Michigan before beginning his athletics administration career as a high-school football coach. He then joined the football coaching staff at Central Michigan University in 1965 and became head coach there in 1967. He stayed at that post until taking the athletics director position at Vanderbilt.

Kramer's NCAA committee service includes stints on the Division I Men's Basketball Committee (he chaired that group in 1992), the Division I Committee on Infractions and the Division I Management Council. He also served on the NCAA's Basketball Television Negotiating Committee from 1989 to 1993.

He was inducted into the NACDA Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.