Kirby Smart’s first full-time coaching job brought him an $8,000 salary and the use of a school car.
A lot has changed since those days as Valdosta State’s defensive backs coach in 2000, to where Smart is now the highest-paid coach in college athletics at age 48.
His total compensation now as Georgia football coach is $13 million per year on a contract that runs through Dec. 31, 2033, with changes approved last week.
The school clearly sees this as money well spent.
Smart has won two national championships, three College Football Playoff title game appearances, seven consecutive first-place finishes and a 94-16 record in his ninth season.
His $2.25 million salary increase, from $10.75 million, is more than the total annual operating expenses of seven other Georgia athletic programs, including men’s and women’s tennis ($1.72 million and $ 1.95 million), men’s and women’s swimming ($1.58 million and $1.85 million), men’s and women’s swimming ($1.58 million and $1.85 million), men’s and women’s golf ($1.12 million and $989,272), as well as volleyball ($1.95 million), according to the NCAA’s annual financial report for the school’s 2023 fiscal year. Georgia annually spends tens of millions that are not classified as team-specific.
Intelligent would be in 15th placeth among CEO salaries in Georgia, according to an AFL-CIO list for 2022 compensation. Ahead of them are the leaders of Equifax, Southern Co., Coca Cola, United Parcel Service and AFLAC.
Smart’s salary is $1.620 million, behind Home Depot CEO Ted Decker. He was already ahead of the $9.61 million that Delta CEO Edward Bastian earned that year.
Smart’s salary now puts him ahead of salaries listed for the CEOs of companies based outside of Georgia, such as the leaders of SoFi Technologies, Stifel Financial, US Foods Holding, Best Buy, Alcoa, Burlington Stores, Dave & Buster’s Entertainment, Sherwin Williams, Progressive, Victoria’s Service and Keurig Dr.
He is in the same range as leaders Foot Locker, Avis Budget Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. The average salary for a CEO of an S&P 500 company in 2022 was $16.7 million, the AFL-CIO said.
In Smart’s first season coaching in the SEC, he was paid $97,000 a year as LSU’s defensive backs coach under Nick Saban in 2004.
“Kirby and I used to laugh and tease each other about who would be the first person to have two commas in their paycheck,” former LSU assistant and now Cedar Shoals football coach Leroy Ryals told the Athens Banner-Herald in 2018. “ Of course, he hit me a lot. I joke with him all the time: ‘Look, you have two commas on your salary’. You can at least buy me a hot dog now.”
Smart earned a salary of $115,000 in 2005 as Georgia’s running backs coach. Smart was making $1.5 million a year as Alabama’s defensive coordinator in 2015 when he was hired at Georgia, and $3.75 million in his first two seasons at Georgia, and that amount has more than tripled since then.
He now earns more than 13 times the annual salary of Georgia President Jere Morehead, who earns $973,900, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The highest earning former Georgia football players in the NFL in average salary per year include quarterback Matthew Stafford at $40 million per year and three players Smart coached in offensive tackle Andrew Thomas at $23.5 million, linebacker Roquan Smith at $20 million and running back Nick Chubb at $14.85 million, according to Overthecap.com.
“Coach Smart’s unprecedented success is the definition of excellence for all of college football,” Morehead said in a statement. “He has excited Bulldog Nation for what is yet to come after winning two national championships.”
This article originally appeared in the Athens Banner-Herald: A look at Georgia football coach Kirby Smart’s $13 million annual salary
