Traylor fans are living their dream right now. Travis Kelce has finally slipped a ring on Taylor Swift’s finger! Their engagement post, cheekily captioned “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” has already blown up Instagram with over 34 million likes. While NFL fans have been glued to every twist of their love story, the college football world is buzzing with the same excitement. The newly engaged power couple even turned heads at the Nebraska Huskers vs. Cincinnati Bearcats showdown at Arrowhead Stadium. And though Georgia Bulldogs’ head coach Kirby Smart had nothing to do with the Swift-Kelce romance, he suddenly found himself following some very real orders from his wife, Mary Beth!
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Smart has been married to Beth for almost two decades now. They are a happy family with three children. Having a huge role to play in Smart’s career, she knows what Smart might need at the moment. While Smart might have too many things on his plate, like recovering from the Carson Beck heartbreak, or with a quarterback storm brewing between Gunner Stockton and Ryan Puglisi, his wife tries to lighten the mood. And what does Taylor Swift have to do with it?
On August 28, the Georgia Bulldogs Athletics podcast, had invited Smart on the podcast. A fan asked a question about the Georgia head coach’s comment on the Travis-Taylor engagement. That’s when a funny story involving his wife came up. Smart hinted at how he is updated with all the news, thanks to his wife. “Yeah, we just had this discussion. I mean, it’s I don’t have a lot of thoughts. I wouldn’t have known other than the fact my phone got texted by my wife within 3 seconds of the engagement happened,” said the head coach.
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While the engagement news itself is something to be excited about, Beth wants her husband to do something in honor of this special occasion. “She went crazy and told me that I needed to play Taylor Swift at practice all day because, in honor of her getting engaged, she told me it would happen a while back,” shared Smart. Before you start thinking about the songs that Smart is going to add to his team’s practice playlist, you don’t have to let yourself go through all that mental work. As the Georgia head coach shared, “I told her ‘no way.’” While Travis pulled off a picture-perfect engagement, it gave Smart’s wife a chance to playfully brag.
The First Lady of Georgia was proud that she had worn the same dress Taylor wore during the engagement photos. But she made it a point to let others know that she had worn it before the pop star did. Smart ended the conversation, joking that his wife was fully invested, making it a “one-sided conversation.” This just gave a glimpse of the peppy chemistry shared between the duo.
Kirby Smart’s wife, the silent architect of his coaching career
While Beth must be known as Smart’s wife, she has an identity of her own. The Georgia First Lady was born on the 23rd of December in the year 1975, in Montgomery, Alabama. She followed her passion for basketball while playing for the Morrow High School basketball team. And soon success followed Smart’s future wife as Beth won the Miss Georgia Basketball 1999. Besides playing basketball, she followed her academic aspirations. Beth pursued a finance degree and later on, she received her law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law. But the universe had different plans.
Beth soon got herself a role in the Georgia athletic department when she met with Smart. Smart’s head coach’s bio on the team website says, “The couple met long after their undergraduate days at Georgia, when Lycett, then working in the UGA Athletic Association Business Office helped arrange Smart’s trip to interview for the Bulldogs’ running backs coaching job in 2005.” So passively, Beth has had a strong influence on Smart’s coaching journey from the very beginning. Now, this called for some shoutout from Smart himself. The Georgia head coach made a visit to the SEC Media Days, and he started the speech with his wife’s unwavering support.
“First and foremost would be my wife, absolutely the best teammate anybody could ever ask for, and 19 years we’ve been together, and this is the 19th anniversary, and here I am celebrating it in Atlanta with you guys. She and I have learned to appreciate the time we do have together. She spent a season with me at the Dolphins in the NFL, nine at Alabama, and nine at Georgia. So there you go, nine and nine, 18 plus one, that’s 19. Getting ready to go on our 10th season at UGA, and she’s been the best teammate I could ever ask for,” said the head coach. Would it really hurt Kirby Smart to drop a little Taylor Swift at practice just to keep his wife smiling?
Written by
Edited by
Arvind Manoharan