Kirby Smart on his approach to holidays, time off for the team
The holidays are for spending time with family, even if you’re a football coach in the middle of a busy season. And for Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, he gets to double dip with his birthday coming two days before Christmas.
“Not much for the birthday, just hanging out with the family,” Smart said about his plans for his birthday on Friday during an appearance on Atlanta sports radio 92.9 The Game. “It’s worked out really well because we’ve not really had many awkward bowl times so I get the 23rd most years – I think we’ve had to practice once or twice – but I usually get the 23rd off, give our players time off. So I get to spend it with the family which is kind of unheard of in our industry, to get to be with your family on your birthday. A lot of other coaches are jealous of that. It does get packaged with Christmas pretty close, but it’s good to have 48 hours to rest and recoup.”
As for how he approaches Christmas shopping and making sure everybody in his family is happy come morning of the 25th, Smart says he lets his wife handle that. The two parents are pretty good about not getting each other anything. They simply enjoy the time together in the middle of a chaotic College Football calendar but also are like so many others have a trio of children to Christmas shop for.
“To be honest, we’re pretty bad. We don’t do a good job about that,” Smart said about the gift exchange between him and his wife. “I kid with people all the time that when your wife or your significant other says she doesn’t want anything, everybody says ‘Don’t fall for that. That’s a set up.’ But she’s really good about, she doesn’t want me to get her anything and I don’t want her to get me anything so we just spend time together and have a great time. The kids? She does a great job with that. She handles all of that and there’s no chance you’re going to see me out, not without a mask and a hat and a beanie, trying to get that last minute in.”
Smart’s team gets that time around Christmas off too. The Bulldogs break for the holidays for a few days before regrouping for the bowl game next week. Per NCAA rules, because the Bulldogs are forced to practice up until hours before the holidays and get back to Athens shortly after for their game, they are able to provide assistance is helping their players get to and from wherever they need to be to be with family.
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“We don’t police it real hard. We obviously get to provide them travel to their destination whether that be home, aunt/uncle, and back,” Smart said. “That’s a long tradition in all of College Football that during bowls when you have to be there to practice, you get travel amounts given to you to go home and back. That’s really been a long standing tradition and we follow that. Sometimes you have to remember what you’re fighting for, and when you go back you try to get a good sense of home, you get that break and you get rejuvenated and come back ready to go.”
“You always worry about it, and we have a conditioning plan. We even send some GPS units with guys to say, ‘Hey, can you go out and run a little bit, track a little bit?,'” he added. “Maybe it’s a guy that hasn’t been able to practice or guys that just might be out of shape. We push them hard to do that. I don’t know exactly where every guy is going because some guys might not go home, they go with friends. But they get a good solid three days, it’s probably around 48 hours or so.”
Smart joked that while the weather outside might not be the best for a comfortable casual jog, there isn’t one of his players that doesn’t have some sort of access to an indoor area that they can go for a run. His only hope is that they don’t hook the team GPS up to the dog instead of doing the running themselves.
Georgia players return to Athens and head to Atlanta on Monday, the 26th, for their College Football Playoff game against Ohio State. The Bulldogs and Buckeyes have faced off just once before in the 1993 Citrus Bowl. This time in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl there’s a spot in the National Championship Game on the line. Kickoff time for the No. 1 vs. No. 4 clash from Mercedes-Benz Stadium is set for December 31st at 8:00 p.m. on ESPN.
