UGA senior TE Chandler fights to play through injuries

Athens — In an interview before the season kicked off, senior Tripp Chandler talked about how he was in the best shape of his life and how he was excited to be a leader on the best Georgia team he’d been a part of.

Three and a half months later Chandler winces in pain as he pulls a green, non-contact jersey over his head after a Monday afternoon practice. He has a sort of sling around his right shoulder and a custom-made brace on his left knee. He gingerly sits down on a weight bench to discuss whether he’ll be able to play against Georgia Tech in the last home game of his collegiate career.

His answer makes him sound more like a NASCAR crew chief than a collegiate tight end.

“I’m living in the training room right now just trying to get every thing right,” Chandler says. “I’m out there just trying to find different things to put on my knee that helps me just get a little bit of edge that helps me run and block and do the things you have to do to be productive at tight end. Right now we’re in a trial-and-error stage trying to figure out what’s working and what’s worse off than the other so we can try to fix that problem.”

Chandler sustained a sprained neck in the season’s opening game but kept playing. Then he sprained the AC joint in his shoulder four weeks later against Alabama and missed the next four games. Two games into his return, against Auburn, he sustained a sprained medial collateral ligament in his knee in the first half and did not play in the second half.

All three injuries hurt “every day, especially on Sundays.”

Not exactly the scenario Chandler envisioned this summer. But he’s determined to finish his senior season upright.

“Tripp was excited about his senior year like a lot of those guys,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said. “To get banged up like he did was tough for him. He knows this is it for him so he’s not trying to save himself for anything. He’s trying like mad to play even if it doesn’t feel as good as he’d like for it to feel.”

The easy call would be for Chandler to shut it down.

“I’m going to have to lose a limb to not play,” said the 6-foot-6, 263-pound Woodstock resident. “From the outside looking in, though, if I’m not helping out then I don’t want to be a part of it. The last thing you want to do is drag the team down for your own selfish cause.”

Chandler said he doesn’t know or care whether the NFL will be an option for him after college.

“This weekend is what’s important to me right now,” he said. “All that other stuff can wait.”