Georgia’s Kirby Smart flourishing amid ‘the grind’

With only one conference home game remaining after this one, it’s expected to be a fairly significant recruiting weekend. That’s despite going head-to-head with the nation’s marquee matchup in Knoxville of Alabama-Tennessee, which kicks off at the same time.

Coaches spend pretty much every Friday night on the road recruiting. Postgame Saturdays and Sunday mornings are reserved for hosting recruiting prospects and their families. Monday through Thursday is spent in acute preparation for coming opponents.

Coaches try to sneak in some quality time with their families along the way. Georgia coach Kirby Smart builds that into the weekly schedule every Thursday. But kids’ football games, gymnastics meets and dance recitals can be difficult, if not impossible, to attend this time of year.

Nobody’s worried about overworked college coaches these days because they are tremendously well-compensated, if not overly so. But there remain only so many days in a year and so many years in a lifetime.

Now 46 years old and Georgia’s coach for the past seven seasons, Smart was asked what he does to take care of himself. He laughed.

“I should exercise more; I don’t,” Smart said during the Bulldogs’ midweek preparations for Saturday’s game. “I like to eat, and that doesn’t couple well with not exercising. But I spend time with our players and what little time I have left I spend with my family.”

Smart’s health and well-being is no joking matter. The schedule, pace and never-ending stress of the “grind” are a real issue in college coaching, especially at the highest levels.

Former Georgia coach Mark Richt believes the grind contributed significantly to him developing Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis he revealed in July 2021.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that it contributed to my situation,” said Richt, who is a part-time college football analyst for ACC Network. “Lack of sleep especially. The only time your brain detoxes is during REM sleep. You don’t get much of that as a coach. And you only get rid of the toxins in your body through exercise. So, inflammation and stress are pretty prevalent.”

Parkinson’s is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. The actual cause is unknown, but medical studies have determined that both inherited and environmental factors seem to play a role.

Richt coached for 35 years before retiring in 2018. He said he would routinely gain 30 to 40 pounds during the season, then try to lose it all during the offseason. Typically, he would develop a decent exercise regimen over the summer and carry it into preseason camp.

“By the end of Game 1, you feel like you don’t have time to do it anymore, and you start eating whatever’s there, and you don’t sleep,” Richt said. “The biggest triggers for Parkinson’s are inflammation, toxins in your body and stress.”

Smart and his wife, Mary Beth, have three children. Twins Weston and Julia turned 14 in February. Andrew turned 10 in late May. Andrew, who many of the players call “Drew,” is an almost constant companion of his father at the Butts-Mehre football complex.

Amid all their other duties, coaches spend time being surrogate parents to the Bulldogs’ players. The recruiting footprint of the defending national champions has increased significantly since the program’s first appearance in the College Football Playoff in 2017. Including 85 players and more than two dozen walk-ons, players have signed with Georgia from as far west as California and as far south as Australia.

Part of Smart’s pitch to prospects and their parents is that they can reach out to him about anything at any time.

“I can cold-call – that is the term I like to use – Kirby right now without texting him first. Him or Mary Beth, either one,” said Tralee Hale, the mother of Georgia cornerback Kelee Ringo, who signed with the Bulldogs out of Phoenix. “Both of them are extremely open and flexible and accommodating. It’s just unreal to imagine how Kirby juggles it all with so much going on, but he handles it.”

In recruiting, Smart promises prospects that he will “coach them hard.” The intention, he said, is to get the most out of their athletic potential while hopefully earning them a shot at a professional football career. But winning -- right now – remains the primary objective.

“So, I love coach Smart, first off; let me get that out of the way – love him,” said Xavier Truss, a fourth-year junior guard from Rhode Island. “You can text him. He’s very personable with individual players. That’s something I’ve noticed over the past four years, just how personal he can be. But, at the same time, at practice he can flip that switch and light a fire under you. He can do that, too. At the end of the day, I think that helps overall camaraderie of the team and everybody involved.”

While it probably hasn’t been great for Smart’s health, it has been very good for the Bulldogs’ bottom line – and Smart’s. Last week’s 42-10 win over Auburn improved his record to 72-15 as Georgia’s coach. The corresponding winning percentage of .828 exceeds those of Alabama coach Nick Saban (.801, 275-67-1) and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney (.813, 156-36).

In July, Smart signed a new contract that pays him an average of $11.25 million a year. For a month or so, the 10-year, $112.5 million deal made Smart the highest-paid coach in college football. Both Saban and Swinney signed new contracts in September to put them back ahead of Smart on that list.

Georgia’s players know how much money all their coaches make. It’s public record and routinely bantered about. They also know better than most the time and energy commitment that’s involved.

“It’s a lifestyle to them now, at this point in time,” sophomore offensive tackle Broderick Jones said. “You know, I commend them for that. You know they have families as well, but I feel like they put in the time for their families and for us to succeed at a high level. And, you know, I believe their families understand that.”

They do. But Matt Luke, Georgia’s offensive line coach from 2019-21 and a former head coach at Ole Miss, abruptly retired in February to spend more time with his family.

And coaching tenures in general are on the decrease. A study by Business Insider in 2018 showed that the average tenure for an FBS head coach at that time was less than five years. Increased compensation along with a relentless recruiting calendar that now includes a December signing period have contributed to shorter careers.

Richt was at Miami for only four seasons after coaching at Georgia for 15.

“All year round is probably a bigger issue,” he said. “You know, it’s the type of job that can be a 24/7, 365-days-a-year deal. You try to carve out some down time or vacation time, but it’s hard to be peaceful when there are still a lot of things on your plate that at a moment’s notice need your attention, whether it’s recruiting or discipline or hiring a new coach or whatever it may be.”

Smart said his sanity comes in the former of regular routine.

“Sunday-Monday-Tuesday is pretty intense for our coaches,” he said. “Wednesday is a little better. We go home after practice, so you get to see your family. I like to say we catch up on Wednesday. Thursday, take a deep breath and then get ready for Friday and Saturday. There’s not a lot of time I have in the day to do other things.”

Like diet and exercise. For now, they will have to wait.