3 years after shooting, linebacker E.J. Lightsey thrives at Georgia Tech
The way E.J. Lightsey describes the events of Feb. 21, 2022, is still done in an almost incredulous tone.
“I get to the hospital, there’s people inside the waiting room, and that’s when I knew it was bigger than what I thought,” Lightsey said. “All of them are, like, flabbergasted. I look and there’s blood everywhere.”
Lightsey was hit twice by stray bullets that day. At a city park in his hometown of Fitzgerald, Lightsey was doing offseason conditioning work with a former high school teammate and noticed a nearby altercation was beginning to escalate. Had he not opted to make a break for it and leave the park there is no telling what might have happened.
“I try not take anything for granted,” Lightsey said.
Now a 6-foot-1, 235-pound junior linebacker for No. 23 Georgia Tech, Lightsey is coming into his own, on and off the field. And having started his college career at Georgia, Friday’s edition of Clean Old Fashioned Hate means a little more to a player who very nearly missed his shot to fulfill his dream of playing college football.
A hurricane brewing
Lightsey played a little basketball in middle school and ran a little track growing up in Fitzgerald, but he always gravitated toward football. His love for the game coupled with the realization the sport offered him a chance to play beyond high school allowed him to focus all his athletic energy toward the gridiron.
Playing defensive end for the Fitzgerald Purple Hurricane, Lightsey really began to see his fortunes crystallize his junior season in 2020.
“He was a little bit bigger, and he played as a sophomore at defensive end. He was awesome, first-team all-region,” former Fitzgerald coach Tucker Pruitt said. “And then he had a really good offseason and kind of leaned up, almost kind of grew taller and leaner. We were kind of struggling for some linebackers, so we gave him a shot back there, and the rest is history, man. Right when we saw ‘em back there, he was just sideline to sideline making tackles, and it was perfect spot for him, and he kind of flourished from then on.”
Lightsey initially received interest from Coastal Carolina and Virginia Tech, then received his first scholarship offer from South Carolina. A whole slew of SEC and ACC programs would follow.
Ahead of his senior season, after helping Fitzgerald go 14-1 and finish as the runner-up in GHSA Class 2A, Lightsey committed to Florida in August 2021. He loved the coaching staff there, the culture and the proximity to home, he said.
But Florida fired coach Dan Mullen in November 2021, and Lightsey suddenly found the coaches he was committed to playing for no longer would be there if he enrolled at Gainesville, Florida, in 2022. Georgia was still waiting in the wings and had never stopped recruited him along the way, Lightsey said.
On Feb. 2, 2022, Lightsey officially signed a scholarship with Georgia. Nineteen days later his college football career was in serious jeopardy.
‘People started scattering’
Lightsey actually was going to go to a gym to work out, but he and a friend decided to do some conditioning work at Seaboard Side Park in Fitzgerald instead.
The park was crowded — which was not uncommon, Lightsey said — and during the course of the workout, Lightsey noticed a nearby altercation was getting heated. So he and his friend decided to get out of Dodge.
To get to his friend’s truck, Lightsey said, their path had to cut through the heart of the crowd, a crowd which contained many folks who recognized the local star who had led Fitzgerald to a state championship a little more than two months ago, had been named the GHSA Class 2A defensive player of the year and who would be playing for the Georgia Bulldogs soon.
“It started to get more and more heated. People started scattering. They had already seen what was about to happen,” Lightsey said. “Me and my friend, to try to get where we’re going, we had to go through them. I know some of these people. They’re trying to stop me and talk to me.
“We’re going to the truck, my back is turned, shots went off. I actually didn’t even know I was hit. I was hit in the back of the shoulder and the back of the foot. It must have ricocheted off the ground or while I was running and went in the back of my foot and came out.”
Lightsey’s friend jumped behind the wheel and headed toward the Dorminy Medical Center, fortunately only a few minutes from Seaboard Side Park. Lightsey said that because of the rapidness of what transpired, maybe even because of his own adrenaline, he never really felt either of the two gunshots that hit him.
He knew he had been struck in the right shoulder. It wasn’t until he was admitted to a patient room that he felt dampness on his right foot and removed his shoe to see his sock soaked in blood.
But Lightsey wasn’t concerned about what was happening in the present. His mind already had turned to the future.
“The main thing I’m worried about is, ‘How serious this is?’” Lightsey said. “I was committed to Georgia at the time. I’m thinking, ‘How will they feel about this?’”
From Athens to Atlanta
Lightsey credits Georgia football’s training and medical staff for being present through his immediate recovery process, a process he was told from the outset would not be too lengthy. One of the two bullets that entered his body had gone through his right foot. The other was lodged in his right shoulder and already had begun to move down the right side of his body, where it still lives to this day — doctors told Lightsey taking it out would be pointless.
Georgia honored Lightsey’s scholarship, too, and he would appear in four games as a freshman for the Bulldogs in 2022, making his debut against Samford and recording his first career tackle in a 33-0 win. He also played two defensive snaps and on a punt return in UGA’s 37-14 win over Tech at Sanford Stadium.
Lightsey never played in 2023 because of injuries to his right shoulder and groin. In December that year, Lightsey entered the transfer portal.
“I talked to (Tech) coach (Brent) Key on my visit. We sat down in his office and he told me it wasn’t gonna be easy,” Lightsey said. “‘You’re gonna get your chance, you’re gonna get your shot, just make the best of it. It’s not gonna be handed to you.’ That’s what I liked about it. He shot me straight. That’s what I wanted. He was genuine.”
In January 2024, Lightsey transferred to Tech.
A return to form
During Fitzgerald’s state title run in 2021, Pruitt, now the coach at Appling County High School, said Lightsey would often get reps on offense, although sparingly because the star linebacker was playing with a hip flexor issue. But in the championship victory over Thomasville, with everything to play for, Lightsey was a big part of the Fitzgerald offensive game plan and scored on a 2-yard run in the first quarter that gave Fitzgerald a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
It was Fitzgerald’s first state title since 1948.
“Great player, great teammate, great person,” Pruitt said of Lightsey. “He’s got a smile that lights up the room. Never ran from the work. Was always willing to do whatever it takes. Any time you got one of your best players that’s one of your hardest workers, that’s a pretty good recipe for success.”
While Lightsey committed to Florida before signing with Georgia, he was always pretty high on Tech, too. Former Tech defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker, now a defensive coach for UGA, had recruited Lightsey for Tech.
Lightsey played his first game for the Yellow Jackets on Aug. 24, 2024, in Dublin, Ireland. A week later, in a win over Georgia State, a hamstring injury sidelined him for the next four games.
He would finish the season with a modest 22 tackles. A first-quarter pick-6 against North Carolina State was a crucial play in a 30-29 Tech win.
This season, Lightsey has started all 11 games for the Jackets. He has made 58 tackles, third most for the Tech defense, and is the team’s third best run defender, according to Pro Football Focus, among Jackets with at least 400 defensive snaps.
“I know it’s the best decision I ever made because I’m getting to play now, I’m getting to do what I love,” Lightsey said of deciding to play for Tech. “I sat for the longest time watching, whether it was injury or just being young. Now, just getting my shot, it’s an amazing feeling.”
Lightsey said he is the first member of his family to attend college.
“Just really proud of who he is, the young man he’s become,” Pruitt added. “Obviously the good Lord blessed him with a lot of talent, but it’s awesome to see E.J.’s done his part, too, and maximized that and been able to go off and have a great career and he’s gonna get a degree from Georgia Tech and, man, that’s gonna really carry him places in life,” Pruitt said. “Great to see the success that he’s had, a kid from Fitzgerald, Georgia. I know the whole town of Fitzgerald is rooting for him, and I sure am, too.”
Friday’s Clean Old-Fashioned Hate will be the third for Lightsey and his second wearing a white-and-gold uniform. He recorded two stops and logged 34 snaps in the eight-overtime classic last year in Athens, Lightsey’s first time back at Sanford Stadium since transferring.
In this year’s meeting Lightsey will be expected to play a big role in Tech’s attempt to slow Georgia’s powerful offense. But Key said the linebacker’s commitment to perseverance is a constant example for his teammates in the locker room.
“You talk about being able to overcome adversity? He’s somebody that’s come through a lot of adversity,” Key said. “I’ve used him as a focal point a lot this week. When you hear his story and what he’s gone through, and to be where he’s at right now — guys that have little nicks and bumps and bruises, it really makes the ones that don’t wanna play through pain, play through adversity, it really shows out when you got E.J. and what he’s been through and what he’s done to be where he’s at.”
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