Macon Touchdown Club award winners get advice from UGA coach Kirby Smart at annual Jamboree

Wisdom, awards and fried pork chops were slung in spades at the Macon Touchdown Club’s annual Jamboree Monday night as the club honored local athletes, scholarship winners and hosted Georgia football coach Kirby Smart at a packed Methodist Home in Macon.

The meal — chef Lonnie Bivins’ pork chops are apparently one of Coach Smart’s favorites, to hear him and Bivins tell it — was second to the stacked slate of Macon athletes in attendance. 

Northeast’s star running back Nick Woodford won the club’s OrthoGeorgia/Edgar Hatcher Back of the Year Award in the wake of the Raiders’ run to the A-Division I state title game. It was the second time Woodford took home the award after he won it in his sophomore season. Woodford’s head coach, Jeremy Wiggins, won the Marvin Davis Coach of the Year trophy.

Southwest edge rusher and tight end Rinaldo Callaway, fresh off his state title game appearance with the Patriots’ basketball team, won the Bill Turner Lineman of the Year award. Stratford kicker Stebin Horne was named Special Teams Player of the Year.

Other Macon players were honored for receiving Bobby Gene Sanders Memorial Scholarships. Covenant’s Asa Wood, Stratford’s Brooks Garner, Howard’s Donald Williams, Mount de Sales’ Nate Frankum and Tattnall’s William Stuart received the scholarship for their combination of outstanding performance in the classroom and on the gridiron.

To these athletes, along with the club’s “Super 7” team of standout players from around the state, Smart delivered a speech filled with personal stories both humorous and heartfelt.

“Dreams do come true” was the head coach’s theme for the night. He spoke about his rise to stardom at Georgia as a player, then how he ascended the rungs of the coaching ladder before arriving as the lead man for the Bulldogs a little less than a decade ago, using his late father’s own words when addressing the football players in attendance.

A key point came when Smart talked about how his father recorded a speech for a local event in Bainbridge, their hometown, and that a relative sent him the recording. In the recorded rehearsal of the speech, Sonny Smart used his son’s story to inspire folks in his hometown, using the line “dreams do come true.”

Smart’s father died late last year after he fell and broke his hip while in New Orleans for his son’s College Football Playoff game. The head coach was remarkably composed while talking about his dad as a role model.

“You’ve got your whole life in front of you. Make the most of all those opportunities,” Smart said of moments with loved ones and football alike.

His memories of the speech by his father also translated into more nitty-gritty, football recruiting-centric advice with a particular focus on navigating the modern NIL world.

“It has pros and cons, but it’s becoming transactional… I challenge you to not make this transactional,” Smart told the players. “‘How do I do that, coach?’ You build relationships.

The coach referenced a recent interaction he had at UGA’s training facility. He visited the dining hall early one morning and spied someone there even earlier than he was.

“It was kinda dark in there, so I flip on the lights, like, ‘Who is that?’ It was Brock Bowers,” Smart said, getting laughs from the audience. “The guy just broke every rookie record out there for tight ends in the NFL and he’s in here working out earlier than me… he’s back here getting his degree.

“That made me feel like I had to work harder, get here earlier, go home later,” Smart said. “He’s just that type of player… that’s the type of people.”

After a few more anecdotes, Smart answered questions from the audience about everything from the NCAA having a “commissioner” to UGA’s spring scrimmages. Smart even mentioned the Atlanta Braves, surely giving some fans in the house a dream crossover.

“I think people have said that about the Braves, that they don’t perform after a bye week, I wouldn’t know about that,” Smart said in response to a question about teams playing poorly after getting a week off in the CFP. “But in college football, a lot of the teams without the byes were actually favored against the team that got the week off.”

The roughly 40-minute chat wrapped up with an earnest take from Smart on the rapidly changing NIL scene in college football, a hot topic of conversation that several other coaches were asked about when they visited the Touchdown Club in 2024.

“It’s great that kids are making money. I want that. I want to be part of what’s best for the kid. But I don’t want it to be the kind of money where it affects whether or not the kid can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Smart said.

Smart posited that while the huge sums of cash players rake in as part of today’s game are beneficial, they can have the wrong effect on some players’ work ethic and damage their careers in the long run.

“You can’t tell me the kid making more works harder than the 18, 19-year-old that doesn’t get anything. Because that kid is hungry for more,” Smart said. “There has to be a balance. And I worry about the other sports (getting enough revenue).”

Smart wrapped up from there, though he was sure to end his annual message with the same greeting that endears him to the majority of the club’s members each fall: “Go Dawgs.”