ATHENS – Mary Beth Smart, wife of Georgia coach Kirby Smart, was a special guest on radio station 960 The Ref in Athens on Friday morning. Spending an hour in studio with “Morning Show” hosts David Johnston and Logan Booker and show regular Russ Tanner, she shared a few secrets about her famous football-coaching husband.
One of those was that the hard-nosed coach has a sentimental side.
She revealed that he’s cried a couple of times recently. Once was when the Braves clinched the World Series a couple of weeks ago. Most recently, it was when he watched the video that Georgia football’s creative staff put out ahead of Saturday’s game against Charleston Southern (noon, SEC Network-Plus).
Narrated by defensive lineman Jordan Davis, it’s a tribute to Georgia’s seniors, who will be recognized in Senior Day ceremonies before Saturday’s noon kickoff. It’s a very moving and well-done, two-minute documentary, and Davis, the All-SEC nose guard, is particularly poignant as narrator.
“Oh my gosh, I was in tears,” Mary Beth said. “I look up at Kirby and he’s like, ‘What’s wrong? I’m like, I’m watching this Senior Day video. He says, ‘I know, it got me, too.’”
Tanner pounced on that. He played center for the Bulldogs when Smart was running backs coach in 2005 and is a longtime friend of the family.
“Kirby cried?” he asked.
“He wouldn’t admit it if he did,” Mary Beth said.
“Does Kirby cry?” Tanner said, digging deeper.
“Kirby cries,” Mary Beth said. “I think he cried when the Braves won. I think that’s the last time I’ve seen him cry.”
Crying aside, the 30 Georgia seniors that will be feted Saturday are the main reason the Bulldogs are in the situation they’re in. At the moment, they’re 10-0 and undisputed as the No. 1 team in the country, with two regular-season games remaining. Georgia is heavily favored to win these final two, against the Buccaneers (4-5, 3-4 Big South) of the FCS and Georgia Tech (3-7) of the ACC.
The rosy outlook extends beyond those last two games. Georgia is expected to meet No. 2 Alabama in the SEC Championship game Dec. 4, and most projections have the Bulldogs advancing to the College Football Playoff even with a loss to the Crimson Tide.
That’s because Georgia has been by far the most dominant team in the country this season. Combining the nation’s top defense with one of the SEC’s more explosive offenses, the Bulldogs have won their games by the average score of 38.7 to 7.6.
Mary Beth said she and her husband thought this was a possibility in January when Davis, fellow defensive lineman Devonte Wyatt and running backs James Cook and Zamir White made the decision to return for their senior seasons.
“From my perspective, what makes teams special is when you have good leaders, when your players are leaders, when your good players are good leaders,” Mary Beth said. “I remember four years ago when Nick (Chubb) and Sony (Michel) decided to come back. That’s what made that team great. And now this year, Jordan Davis and those other guys decided to come back.”
The players felt that way, too. In addition to being line mates, Davis and Wyatt are best buddies. Both said their decisions to return were clinched when each told the other they were leaning toward coming back. Both had NFL early-round draft grades.
But they knew what was possible with a return.
“When JD and I decided to come back, we wanted to have a Sony Michel/Nick Chubb type of year,” Wyatt said this week. “We just weren’t finished. It’s our last year, and we just knew we couldn’t leave. With the leaders we had in the (meeting) room, we knew we could make something great.”
They certainly have. But, according to Mary Beth Smart, it wasn’t as spontaneous and whimsical a decision as those two seniors would have you think.
She shared that her husband was quite concerned about what Davis and some of the other seniors might do when they went on a brief two-night getaway to Key West in January.
“Kirby was on the phone the whole, dadgum time, with Jordan Davis, (defensive line coach) Tray Scott, Jordan’s mom, NFL scouts.” Mary Beth lamented. “And I was so ticked. We’ve got two days and I’m like, ‘He’s either gonna stay or he’s not!’ But now, Jordan Davis staying, Devonte Wyatt staying, James Cook and Zamir coming back, that just set the tone for this entire team, the way they lead, the way they practice.
“It just feels different walking in that building now. You can just see how they love each other and care about this university. I think that matters a lot, too, when the players love their school. And that’s what we’ve got going on now, and it’s really something special to be part of.”
Credit: Logan Booker (Cox Media Group)
Credit: Logan Booker (Cox Media Group)
It was Mary Beth’s first radio-guest appearance of the year. And 960 the Ref was fortunate to get her to come into the studio. Between yelling for her son Andrew’s youth-league football games – his team is in the 9-year-old’s “Super Bowl” this week – and a bout with a recent cold, she noticeably was hoarse throughout the interview.
“I sound like a bullfrog for my radio debut,” she cracked. “Everybody’s talking about Kirby’s halftime speech (from the Florida game). Well, you should see me in the mornings trying to get the kids to school. It takes me a while to recover.”
Then she let the audience in on another little secret.
“My husband is not sick; I’m just going to put that out there,” she said. “He’s like a little Ninja Turtle. He doesn’t ever have a pimple or a cavity or ever get sick at all. He’s just fine.”
The things you learn from a coaches’ wife.
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