South Carolina Football 2011: Gamecocks Need Stephen Garcia to Win SEC East

Talk continues over the indefinite suspension of Stephen Garcia from the Gamecock football team, his fifth since he has been at South Carolina.  South Carolina has worked hard, particularly in the last 10-12 years, in life skills and mentoring activities, teaching athletes of their high profile in the community and preparing for life after college. 

Unfortunately, incident reports are conflicting. At one of these activities, Garcia allegedly smelled of alcohol, took issue with some of the discussions, acted disruptively and was escorted from the event.   Other reports deny alcohol was a factor. 

There was a lot of Twitter and Facebook support for Garcia after the incident. 

Garcia is supposedly engaging in some conditioning and throwing with teammates and receiving counseling with a medical representative in the athletic department.  He has spoken with coach Steve Spurrier, who reportedly would like Garcia back in the fall. 

The Gamecocks depth chart was recently released, and the first team quarterback is listed as “Stephen Garcia OR Connor Shaw.” 

Garcia has reportedly been given a list of conditions he must satisfy before a decision is made on his status sometime this summer, when Spurrier, athletic director Eric Hyman and University president Harris Pastides will confer. 

Garcia’s father was quoted in The State (April 28) saying that his son is “100 percent returning unless the university doesn’t allow him to come back...He wants to finish the job Coach Spurrier asked him to do” to carry Carolina to a championship. 

Reports say Garcia will graduate in May. 

South Carolina has struggled for years to be significant in college football.  Coach Lou Holtz talked about  changing the “culture” of Carolina football.  Culture in Carolina football is a record of 544-540-4 dating back to 1892. 

Carolina’s big SEC football rivals—Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas (add in-state rival Clemson of the ACC)—have won national championships and have better historical winning records. 

As their mentoring of student-athletes has improved, Carolina has invested in better facilities and better coaches in all sports, of which Spurrier is the highest profile, along with baseball’s Ray Tanner of the national champion Gamecocks. 

South Carolina has fought mightily and successfully to run a clean program with high quality athletes.  Some of the history of that fight and what it takes to change the culture.

Last summer, the team dismissed tight end Weslye Saunders in the midst of an NCAA investigation about living arrangements in a swanky Columbia hotel, among other violations of team rules. 

During the Lou Holtz era, Derek Watson and Demetris Summers, two Gamecock players sought by dozens of schools, were dismissed after various violations of the law and team rules.  The Clemson-South Carolina brawl in 2004 kept both teams out of a bowl game. 

Coach Sparky Woods, after a successful run at Appalachian State, (and now at VMI) took over the program in 1989 after the death of Coach Joe Morrison. South Carolina was racked with major drug violations, an expose’ in Sports Illustrated and trials that sent coaches to jail. 

Woods’ mandate was to get the school off the front page and back to the sports pages.  He did, with winning records his first two seasons and invitations to bowl games.  South Carolina turned down the invites for two reasons—the game conflicted with final exams and the program had not sufficiently washed itself of the steroid stains of the Morrison era. 

Now for this fall. 

If Garcia is out, the SEC East becomes a four-way dogfight of 7-5 teams.  The bet here is that Garcia has been more “set up” than he has “messed up” and will return.  He broke curfew with extracurricular female company the night before the Chick Fil-A Bowl, and it took till spring practice for the fourth suspension to hit—why?  

Five suspensions tell you that Garcia likes to live life on the edge—not an unforgivable quality in a quarterback taking you to places you have never been before.  (Real trouble?  See Auburn, Ohio State, Southern Cal)

He is the team’s top quarterback, essential to making the Gamecocks the pick to win another SEC East title, contend for the conference and a BCS bid.  Garcia has improved statistically each year and could be Carolina’s all-time passing leader with a good senior season. 

Other skilled players on offense, most notably Marcus Lattimore and Alshon Jeffery, are tremendous, but Garcia is the key to Spurrier’s offense. Top linemen recruits on both sides of the ball should contribute early. 

Stop the drama and bring Garcia back. Carolina can win big in 2011, change the culture and forever put the ghosts to rest.