"Hey Coach, nice to meet you. Good to meet you, too, Coach. Coach, didn't you coach with the same coach I coached with when we were assistant coaches for that one head coach? Yes, I did, Coach. He's a helluva guy. And a helluva coach. And the head coach we coached under ... Now, that's a helluva guy and helluva coach. They fist-bump (or hold up their drinks) and say in unison: To Coach!"
""I know there are a lot of coaching trees out there that were started by a lot of legends," Kirby Smart said on the eve of winning the SEC championship game in Atlanta. After a decade at the helm of the Georgia Bulldogs, he has planted quite the nursery of saplings himself. "But I'm not sure anyone can match what Nick Saban has done when it comes to preparing coaches, getting them ready to run their own programs.""
Coaches often map professional lineages by recounting past colleague relationships and celebrating shared mentors with toasts like 'To Coach!'. Nick Saban's mentorship has emerged as a dominant root of many coaching careers, producing many head coaches and assistants. Kirby Smart credits Saban's ability to prepare coaches and emphasizes mentor relationships over length of tenure when defining a coaching tree. Smart highlights the importance of being able to call a mentor for advice even when competing in the same conference. After a decade leading Georgia, Smart has developed numerous protégés while maintaining an ongoing mentorship connection with Saban.
Read at ESPN.com
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