The Fifth Element
Spring might be the season of rebirth, renewal and all that Hallmark-card sap, but Stephen Garcia just wants to play football.
During a recent interview at a charity bowling event, the South Carolina freshman said he was 'looking forward' to a lot:
Spring practice, the new running plays installed for Gamecocks' quarterbacks, spending time with his infant son -- anything to move past the events of last spring.
Six times in a span of six minutes, Garcia said he was looking forward to something.
It's hard to blame him for not wanting to look back.
Garcia arrived from Tampa last January with a big pickup truck, a ponytail and the tag as the strong-armed quarterback hand-picked by Steve Spurrier to take the Gamecocks to an SEC championship.
Stephen Garcia graduated high school a semester early, trading his senior prom to get a head start learning Spurrier's offense and participate in spring practice.
That was the plan, anyway, before Garcia was suspended for the spring following two arrests in a two-week stretch.
A year later, Garcia remains the most-talked-about player on the USC roster. But this spring the focus is on Garcia's place in a three-man competition to succeed Blake Mitchell as Spurrier's starter.
'It's definitely a chance. Hopefully, it's my big chance,' Garcia said before the bowling outing last month with pediatric cancer patients. 'I'm just very thankful he's giving me the opportunity to still be here after all the stuff that happened last year. I'm glad that's all behind me. I'm just looking forward to it.'
Though he does not regret his decision, Garcia admits he was not prepared for the responsibilities of college life when he enrolled at USC last winter. Garcia could relate when quarterback Reid McCollum, another early enrollee, returned home in January after two weeks on campus.
'He just said he wasn't ready for it. Same thing for me. I wasn't ready for it,' Garcia said. 'Lucky enough for him, he didn't get into any trouble. He did the smart thing.
'Looking back on it, I still feel like it was a good decision for me to come. But those two setbacks just really hurt a lot of things.'
Garcia was arrested last February for drunkenness and failure to stop on a police command outside the Knock Knock Club in Five Points. Less than two weeks later, Garcia was charged with malicious injury to personal property for keying the car of a visiting professor following a dispute over a parking space at the USC library.
Police dropped the failure to stop charge, and Garcia completed his pretrial intervention requirements, which included community service, to have the other charges expunged from his record.
The 20-year-old Garcia said the experience forced him to grow up 'very quickly.'
Garcia's maturation process was also hastened by the birth of his son, Memphys Glenn, in October. He said he was overcome with emotion the first time he held Memphys, named after a character from the animated penguin movie, 'Happy Feet.'
'It was breathtaking. I broke down,' Garcia said. 'It was pretty intense. It was beautiful.'
Garcia tries to get home every month to visit Memphys and the child's mother, Garcia's high school sweetheart who is attending a two-year school in the Tampa area. Garcia's parents have been supportive and assist with the childcare duties.
'It's a whole new level of responsibility,' Garcia said. 'Being a parent is a beautiful thing. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to be there with him and his mother. It's a very exciting experience for me thus far.'
Garcia also is excited about his chance to run the first-team offense this spring, although he might have to wait a few days for that opportunity. Spurrier said recently that Garcia could miss a couple of practices because of classroom absences.
'If Stephen missed class and that's the policy, then he ought to be suspended,' said Gary Garcia, Stephen's father. 'My kid is responsible for his own actions. He takes responsibility.'
The missed classes aside, USC assistant quarterbacks coach David Reaves said Garcia has had no problems since his rocky start.
'If you go back with Stephen Garcia, everything that happened to him was the first two weeks of when he got here,' Reaves said. 'Ever since then he's been a model student, model athlete, and he's done a good job for us.'
What remains to be determined is what type of job Garcia can do directing Spurrier's Cock 'n' Fire offense, which is expected to include a few wrinkles to take advantage of Garcia's running ability.
Rivals.com ranked Garcia the nation's No. 4 dual-threat quarterback after the 6-foot-2, 212-pounder compiled more than 8,000 passing yards and 1,300 rushing yards at Jefferson
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