Kirby Smart raves about Shane Beamer, has some advice for SEC’s newest head coach

Kirby Smart isn’t taking any credit.

The Georgia head coach is happy for his longtime friend and former assistant Shane Beamer, who was announced Sunday as the new head coach at South Carolina. However, he knows Beamer didn’t get the job solely because of his former stops.

“He worked really hard and helped shape and build our program, then went to Oklahoma and did the same, I’m sure, with Lincoln (Riley),” Smart said. “He’s done a good job where he’s been. I’m not taking a lot of credit for that. He’s earned that opportunity on his own merit.”

Beamer coached special teams and tight ends at Georgia for two seasons as part of Smart’s inaugural staff. He then spent the past three seasons at Oklahoma as tight ends coach for the Sooners.

Smart has been in Beamer’s position before as a coach whose first head gig is in the uber-competitive SEC. He said the biggest challenge of that transition is coming to grips with the fact that, for the first time, all the power of the program is in your hands.

“For the first time, you’re making the ultimate decisions,” Smart said. “I think that you’ve got to be comfortable that you’re going to make good ones, you’re going to surround yourself with people you trust and want to be there and that have the same goals and aspirations in mind that you do. That may sound simple, but you can get overwhelmed because of the amount of information pouring in and the amount of people that want jobs and want an opportunity to be in the SEC.”

This is the third Smart assistant to take a head coaching job since he’s been at Georgia. Former defensive coordinator Mel Tucker departed for the Colorado job, and former offensive line coach Sam Pittman took the Arkansas head coaching position after the 2019 regular season.

When that happens, Smart holds no grudges. He knows coaching is a grinding profession that isn’t easy on anyone, the coaches themselves or their families.

So, he thanks them for their time at Georgia and says he’ll always be there to help them any way he can down the line. In the coaching fraternity, he said, that’s how it should be.

“It’s all about relationships in this business,” Smart said. “I want to have good relationships with those guys who’ve worked here before. We’ve been able to keep it that way with the guys that have left here and gone on to head coaching jobs.”

This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 1:30 PM.