NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart took to the podium in Nashville on Tuesday and laid out a vision for the coming season looking to build on back-to-back national championships that, he said, is borrowed from New Zealand's legendary "All Blacks" national rugby team.
The coach, speaking at the SEC Kickoff media event, also addressed the several speeding incidents that have cast a shadow over his program in the wake of the tragic crash that left a player and staffer - who was at the wheel and well above the legal blood alcohol limit, according to a toxicology report - dead in January.
He described the deaths of that staffer, Chandler LeCroy, and player Devin Willock as "the loss of two dear family members."
"We love them and we miss them," Smart said, adding that the crash was "one of the toughest things I've ever been through as a coach, was to experience that."
LeCroy had a history of speeding violations, and an 11Alive investigation in March confirmed a football team official stepped in to try and help reduce fines and punishments related to at least one of her tickets.
Police determined she was racing with former player Jalen Carter at the time of the fatal wreck, which also severely injured another staffer, Tori Bowles. A second player, Warren McClendon, escaped serious injury. Both Bowles and Willock's father have filed lawsuits in relation to the crash.
Despite the gravity of the crash's fallout, subsequent speeding incidents with players currently on the team have made headlines in the past few months.
"I'm disappointed any time we have traffic incidents," the coach said when asked about the issue. "What concerns me most is the safety of our players and when you drive at high speeds, it's unsafe, and we don't want that to happen."
He said the school would "do all we can to take that out and make sure that's eradicated," framing the program's emphasis as on harm reduction.
"I'm smart enough to understand and know that 18-20-year-olds is when this happens, it's when it happened with me as a student-athlete, that's when speeding happens," Smart said. "What we wanna do is take that out and make it safe and not have high speeds - if somebody's gonna get a speeding ticket, it should not be a super speeder."
Addressing a later question, Smart said, "We don't wanna be just a football factory, we wanna produce people that are quality citizens, that do a great job in the community."
Inspiration from New Zealand's 'All Blacks' rugby team
Smart also spoke at length about the mindset he's trying to instill in his team as they look to win a third straight national championship next season.
He offered three key words: "Better never rests."
"This year we studied the New Zealand All Blacks, the most successful sports team in the history - really of teams," he said. "We took a deep dive, we took six weeks and we took a title and a mantra from them and studied those things for six weeks."
He cited the New Zealand team's historical winning percentage as among the best of any global sports team, using it as a point of comparison to strive for consistent excellence.
"One of their big mantras is 'better never rests,' we believe that," Smart said. "Because we don't want complacency. They've done it better than anybody else, and we use that."
"What drives us for this season is intrinsic motivation," the coach added. "We're not gonna be controlled by outside narratives and what people say, who's gonna be the quarterback. The intrinsic motivation comes from within and what we decide to do."
When asked later about what he can do to keep improving the program, he again cited the mantra for this year: "Better never rests and we firmly believe that."