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Kirby Smart speaks on Apalachee High School tragedy, offers condolences

On3 imageby: Jake Rowe09/05/24JakeMRowe
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Joshua L. Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK

An unspeakable tragedy occured just over 27 miles from the hub of University of Georgia athletics on Wednesday. A 14-year-old Apalachee High School brought a gun to school and opened fire on his peers and teacher. Four individuals, two teachers and two students, lost their lives and nine more were taken to the hospital with injuries.

The event has thoroughly rattled the growing Barrow County community as well as the surrounding areas like Athens-Clarke, Oconee, Jackson, and Gwinnett Counties. That includes the Georgia football program where Kirby Smart, who appeared on 9.29 The Game’s “The SteakHouse” with Steak Shapiro and Rusty Mansell on Thursday, seemed a bit shaken.

“News started popping yesterday morning pretty early and you never think it’s going to hit near you and then it does. I was at a football game there less than three weeks ago, at that same stadium they were all in, a middle school game. Just praying for all the people there, the community, the law enforcement, the families that lost people. A young coach with a wife and two kids, it’s just horrific to think about. But our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Barrow County and Apalachee High School.”

Barrow County schools have closed their doors for Thursday and Friday for the students and teachers at Apalachee High School, a well as those at other schools in the county who saw law enforcement officers from surround counties descend upon their facilities for extra protection.

The two teachers who lost their lives were both in the math department. Both of the students who passed were 14 years old. Smart has three children of his own, all still of school age. It seems as if the Georgia head coach is in the same boat as many other parents when it comes to speaking on what hundreds of parents were going through on Wednesday.

“Scary,” Smart said. Scary for us all.”

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