Kirby Smart opens up on the struggle with balancing life and football

Coaching college football is a never-ending grind, and even the most successful coaches in the nation have trouble finding a balance between coaching and life outside of football. Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who just led the Bulldogs to a National Championship, is no exception.

Smart recently opened up on that struggle, and he said that things have been tough over the past couple of years while turning Georgia into a consistent contender. As the world dealt with COVID-19, Smart had a very surprising revelation.

“But the work/life balance, for instance, this summer, in June, we had official visits on Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” Smart said, via The Athletic’s Sam Khan Jr. “I told the staff, ‘We’re going to take every Monday off, because we’re working every Friday, Saturday, Sunday.’ So last June – the coming out of COVID June – I was ready to step down and resign. I was done. I was done.

“We had kids every day from June 1-June 28. We had caravans showing up from the Atlanta airport at midnight and they wanted to go in our indoor and workout at midnight because they had to go to another school at 7 in the morning and another school at 10 in the evening and they were trying to make the stops. If we weren’t there at midnight, we weren’t going to see them. So what are you going to do, say no? Those kids are flying from Washington and California. Nah, we were there with them. And it drove our staff crazy.

“And it was during OCE, on-campus evaluation. Well, that went away (this year), so we only had 10 days of camp this June. And I told our coaches, ‘Look guys, we’re not working Monday and we’re not coming in Friday until afternoon.’ So we can be with our players Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then we can be with our recruits Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I felt like that got some ability to recharge a little bit like, ‘Man, I’m gonna be better Friday night if I took Friday morning off.’ If I try to work the whole 24 hours, I’m not gonna have any juice or any energy to even present.”

Smart tries to find a way to balance work and life outside of football for all of Georgia’s coaches

With the way college football works, it’s tough to find time to go away. When the season isn’t in session, recruiting jumps to the forefront. Smart knows that, and he also knows the toll that can take on the other members of Georgia’s staff.

“Does a healthy work life balance occur? No,” Smart said. “I have tried to take the calendar – and I take my staff, my most tenured coaches and I say, ‘Hey guys, I want y’all to come together, to look at this calendar for the coaches, the work schedule and I want you to give me some ideas where we can steal some time (off). First off, families are always welcome at our office, they can come to our practices. I got coaches’ kids who come out to the practice and do the drills with the coach because I’m like, ‘You won’t get to be around your son otherwise.’

“So if he wants to come to practice, he can come to any practice any time he wants. He can be a part of anything as long as he’s not in the way or a distraction. I want our families, I want our wives to bring their kids out there at the end of practice. Because our players need to see that.”