Kirby Smart Quotes

For me, it is just the total experience - from the time I first started as an assistant coach until I wound up at the University of Texas for 20 years.

I've cut my teeth as a coach with some great head coaches and some great co-workers and I have been very lucky to have learned a lot of football from all of the above.

I've been around a lot of great coaches in college and the NBA, and I knew Erik Spoelstra three months, and I told my wife, father, and brother that this guy is going to be a helluva coach.

If my assistant goes off and becomes successful, and people want to work with him, I'd take that as a compliment that I'd trained them well.

Throughout my career, I was blessed with great teams and great teammates.

A manager gets in the Hall of Fame by what his players have done for him.

I hadn't trained to be a coach. That takes great training. Being an assistant under a Coach Lombardi or a Tom Landry or whoever, that prepares you to do a better job when you become a coach. I hadn't received that training. It showed.

If I had coached in high school for 60 years, I would have loved it. Getting to the top was not a goal. I welcomed the opportunities, but I just believed do the best doggone job you can, and good things will happen.

I've lost count of all my assistant coaches who have been made head coaches.

To me, personally, my development to become a head coach will be much better working for Coach Saban than necessarily going somewhere else because you learn every day that you're in there.

Jon Gruden taught me the foundation of what I know about this game. Took me under his arm, taught me to see it from a big-picture perspective.

I only have words of thanks to Mourinho, he has made me better. I played a lot under him and I was named player of the season with him in the dugout.

I've been with some great head coaches, but also some great assistant coaches, too.

My personal narrative - I was lucky early on in my career to have some really strong mentors. I didn't realize it at the time, but that's what really built me up.

Welcome to the world we live in as coaches. You've got to figure out what you can do best and better to get these kids a chance to be successful. I think that comes through a lot of things - confidence, improvement, recruiting.

I have been very fortunate to coach a lot of very good secondary players through the years.

As a professional, you want to get as much as you can out of your career, play at the top level, and win trophies. Playing with top players at Manchester City, I've got a great chance of doing that, and I just want to keep improving.

I've had a lot of great coaches. I think Guus Hiddink and Vicente del Bosque are the ones closest to my style. I'm more friendly with the players than a 'formal' coach. I'm not a professor. I'm Roberto Carlos and I want to win with my players and I want them to help me by doing their job well.

I learned a lot from Al Davis, and I got a lot better as a coach.

The best thing you do as a coach is develop an environment where these guys can have some success. Vince Lombardi was that way. He cared about these guys not only as football players but also as men.

I try not to make comparisons between who I've coached. And I haven't always coached the best in the world.

I was really fortunate in my career where I always had executives who were very like-minded.

I took a lot of pride, honestly, in hiring these young guys, that not only to become future head coaches, but I wanted young guys that could help me - guys that can coach, guys that could study, guys that loved it, that would do it for nothing. That's how I got into coaching with the 49ers when John McVay hired me.

Well, I've learned a lot from Bill Belichick. I've said time and time again, before I got to New England, I thought I knew a lot about football. But I think he taught me a lot from A to Z. I still carry it to this day.

Throughout the course of my life, I've been blessed to work with extremely talented people.