Vince Dooley, Jim Donnan, Mike Cavan, Nick Saban, Bobby Bowden, Mark Richt and Chris Hatcher, all outstanding mentors who have been an incredible resource to College Football’s Best Head Coach.
But when saying the Georgia Bulldogs future Hall of Fame coach has been surrounded by great football coaches for his entire life, literally that is the case. Because it started with his father.
Clyde J. “Sonny” Smart was a legendary, beloved high school football coach who won a ton of games and championships, while shaping an immeasurable number of lives. The original Coach Smart was a titan in the business, and a leader with a heart of gold.
Around the game his whole life, he played high school football in his native Alabama, went on to an outstanding career as a player at Samford University in Birmingham, and then began coaching in his home state.
In 1982, Sonny Smart and his family moved to Bainbridge, Georgia, to be the defensive coordinator for the Bainbridge Bearcats. A young Kirby Smart was six years old at the time. That 1982 season, Herschel Walker won the Heisman Trophy, and Georgia, the 1980 national champions, captured a third straight Southeastern Conference title while sporting a perfect 11-0 regular season record.
Kirby quickly became a Bulldog fan.
The dye was cast.
From 1982 through his retirement from coaching in 2005, Sonny Smart coached in Georgia. From 1988-1995, he was the head coach and athletics director at Bainbridge. He then went to Rabun County, where Smart was the head coach and athletic director until his retirement in 2005.Sonny Smart’s entire life was spent around the game he loved with such a passion in the states of Georgia and Alabama. He became the head football coach and athletic director at Bainbridge, where he worked until 1995. Then came a move to Rabun County High School, where he served as the head football coach and athletic director until retiring in 2005.
He married his college sweetheart, the beautiful Sharon Maxey, and they had three children: sons Karl and Kirby, and daughter Kendall.
Faith, academics (Mrs. Smart was “the world’s greatest English teacher” boasts Kirby) and athletics were cornerstones for the family.
Kirby, a chip off the old block, grew into an incredible athlete and student at Bainbridge High School, and signed with Georgia in 1994 when Ray Goff was the Bulldogs head coach.
Kirby had so many of those inherent instincts that the kids of coaches possess. Swift and tough, Smart went on to become one of Georgia’s best ever defensive backs, earning All-SEC and Academic All-American honors. From 1996-1998, Smart starred for Jim Donnan, and there was no doubt that No. 16 was a coach on the field.
Fast forward to where we are now.
The accomplishments of Sonny Smart’s son at his beloved alma mater are astounding. Under Kirby’s watch, Georgia has ascended to the mountaintop of college football. Now in his 10th year, the future Hall of Famer has led the Bulldogs to record shattering greatness. His Bulldogs, 3-0 and in the top 10 (the Bulldogs started 3-0 in all 10 of Smart’s seasons), square off against 2-1 Alabama on Saturday night.
Georgia heads in with a majestic 33-game victory string Between the Hedges on Dooley Field in Sanford Stadium, topping the prior mark of 21 set by Alabama under Nick Saban’s watch from 2015-2019. Smart, of course, helped Saban build the dynasty at Alabama.
Kirby may have been the Goose to Saban’s Maverick, but at Georgia, the native son is an unquestioned all-time Top Gun.
Since Smart’s second season at the Georgia helm, the Bulldogs captured back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022, the only program in the playoff era to win consecutive crowns. Smart has guided Georgia to eight consecutive top seven finishes, with berths in eight straight “major” bowl games. Against the Yellow Jackets, Florida, Auburn and Tennessee, the Bulldogs – adding the 44-41 thriller over the Volunteers in Knoxville two Saturdays ago to the list – are 31-2 since 2017.
From 2021-2023, Georgia had three straight undefeated regular seasons, becoming the only team in college football history to get to 12-0 at any point in a season for three consecutive years.
Combined with the end of the 2020 campaign, and the first three games of 2025, Georgia has won an SEC record 42 consecutive regular season contests.
The 33-18 victory over Alabama to capture the 2021 national championship is transcendent. No title has ever meant more to a fanbase than that one did for Georgia. Then the Dogs went 15-0 and won another one. In the two years since, a 13-1 record with No. 3 national finish, and an SEC Championship have followed.
Smart has led the Bulldogs to the SEC Championship Game an unprecedented seven times in the last eight years.
All of that joy for all of us who love the University of Georgia, and the man (and his top recruit, the sharp-shooting Mary Beth Lycett Smart) so adored by this rabid and loyal fanbase, began to take shape in Bainbridge.
Mrs. Smart told me once, “Jeff, you probably did the same thing, but Kirby grew up running around the back yard pretending to be his favorite Georgia football players.”
When Kirby got the job at Georgia, Coach Smart was on the sidelines for almost all of his son’s games, sharing stories, often in the company of Coach Cavan, and watching intently. He was the ultimate resource.
Sonny Smart passed away this past January. He is greatly missed, but this wonderful man left a legacy that lives on in countless hearts.
I can’t imagine Kirby putting on the headsets for this season’s opener against Marshall, and how it hurt not having his father there.
And I have no doubt that two weeks ago in Knoxville, some heavenly winds from above might’ve helped push that field goal wide right.