Smart brings in Ray Rice to educate players on domestic violence

ATLANTA – Domestic violence has been a hot-button issue in the SEC and Georgia coach Kirby Smart is making sure his players understand why.

To help make sure they get it, Smart had former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice speak to the team Monday night, to talk about his trials and tribulations and help ensure they don’t wind up in the same kind of trouble he continues to pay for today.

“He’s in today. He’s going to visit them and we’re trying to use every education piece we can with our players,” Smart said. “He’s very good at speaking to a group. He’s spoken to others and I’ve had people call and say he’s a really good resource, not only on the domestic violence bit but also in general – college athlete, successful pro athlete who’s now looking to do things after that if he doesn’t make it on a team this year.”

Rice’s story is a familiar one.

In March of 2014, the former Ravens running back was arrested and indicated for third-degree aggravated assault relating to an incident when he punched his fiancé, now his wife.

The NFL subsequently banned Rice indefinitely, although the running back claimed two weeks ago that he would donate his entire salary to charity if allowed to return to the field.

“It was really vital to get him in now because he’s probably going to be in a camp,” Smart said. “His message can cross a lot of genres and I’m excited to have him in.”

Smart said his players would do well to pay attention.

“We’ve got a standard policy we follow as a staff. Obviously, we don’t want our players hitting women, OK? Obviously, we don’t condone that behavior,” Smart said. “But we’ve got to educate our players in a way where that doesn’t happen, but we don’t have anything laid out stipulating (that), we’ve got a process we go to as an athletic department as a whole and we’ve all had that brought to our attention now, even before we went to the head coaches deal down in Destin. It was a hot-button topic so everybody’s aware of our polices as a university as a whole.”