Kirby Smart shares updates on CJ Washington, EJ Lightsey
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Kirby Smart shared the latest on 2 Georgia players dealing with injuries. In his Thursday press conference, Smart shared updates on CJ Washington and EJ Lightsey.
Over the weekend, it was reported that Washington, a freshman linebacker, is out for the rest of spring practice after suffering a contact injury during a drill. Smart detailed the injury.
“CJ Washington had a really tough injury,” Smart told reporters. “I actually didn’t see the hit that happened. It happened late, almost right out of bounds. I turned to walk away and heard some oohs and ahhs. Then he was face down at practice. I thought our medical staff did a tremendous job getting to him quickly. He was concussed. He has a neck injury. We don’t know the complete severity of that or the length of time it will take to recover. But what we do know, is he has all his extremities. He can walk, he was out at practice today. He’s going to be in a neck brace for a while, but he has a great spirit. I mean, he’s smiling, laughing, cutting up over here every day. He misses it. But I don’t know what that timeline is for recovery. He’s meeting with several doctors tomorrow, so we should know more.”
Lightsey is not yet a UGA student but signed with the Bulldogs’ 2022 recruiting class in February. He was injured in a Feb. 21 shooting. Smart detailed that a bullet came dangerously close to the linebacker’s heart.
“And EJ Lightsey is coming up and seeing us,” Smart shared in his Thursday presser. “I’ve met with his coaches a couple of times. He had a really unfortunate incident where he was an innocent bystander and got hit by a stray bullet – several of them. So, he is actually very lucky that it wasn’t worse. And according to (head trainer) Ron (Courson), it was an inch from probably getting into his heart. He’s just a tremendous kid from going out and recruiting him. Everybody in the community talks about him, and it’s a really tough situation. But I think he’s going to have a full recovery and be able to start with us.”
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
