PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF
Jeff Garcia Has Taken The Long Road To NFL Stardom
by: Mitchell Lavnick
Looking back, youth football may have been the only level at which Jeff Garcia didn't have to prove himself. Didn't have to convince anyone he was big enough or fast enough. Didn't have to beg for the chance to show how huge his heart is.
"I went through a phase where as a Little Leaguer—playing youth football, playing Little League baseball, playing basketball—I always seemed more advanced than the other kids," the San Francisco 49ers quarterback remembers. "And then it was in high school that the other kids kind of caught up to me, or they passed me. I didn't quite develop as much. I was still pretty skinny. Speed-wise, I seemed to have slowed down a little bit."
This was not the case when, as a youth football player in Gilroy, California, Garcia began playing for the Gilroy Ponies in the Police Athletic League at the age of 8. That first year, he was a wingback who rarely carried the ball and a safety who occasionally got in on a tackle. After losing the first game 35-0, Garcia's dad Bob, a junior college football coach who was taking time off, took over the team and led it to the championship game, where it lost.
The next year, when Garcia decided he wanted to be more involved in the action, he found his home at quarterback. He also became a champion for the first time. One playoff game was particularly memorable. Living in Gilroy, a small town known for its garlic farms, Garcia's team sometimes got razzed. When his Gilroy Colts squared off against the Santa Teresa Bulldogs for the right to play in the championship game, the pregame chatter heated up. "They were kind of teasing us before the game, and making fun of us being from Gilroy, calling us 'garlic pickers,' and you know, all the things kids can say when they want to be mean."
Making matters worse, Garcia's team looked overmatched. "They were the top team in the league," Garcia remembers. "And their guys all tipped the scales. It was just one of those teams where it seemed like everybody looked bigger. And we came in, and we were stepping on the scale with our shoulder pads on. We had one or two guys who had to dress down to make weight; otherwise, for the rest it was no problem."
Despite the seeming mismatch, Garcia's team clung to a 16-14 lead in the last minute of the game when it was forced to punt from its own end zone. "I was the punter on the team also," Garcia recalls. "So here I was, 9 years old, standing in the end zone during this playoff game. We had a 2-point lead, and here came the perfect snap. And I dropped it!"
"The only thing I could think of was to pick it up and get it out of the end zone, and I got it to about the 2-yard line. So now we had our backs against the wall, last minute of the game, and they were a much bigger team. They had a big fullback, and they tried to pound it at us. We stopped them the first time. There was a penalty the next down, so it backed them up 5 yards. Then they got back down to about the 3-yard line. The next thing you know, they could have kicked a field goal [to win], but they didn't do it. And time ran out." The Colts won the championship the next week.
The Bumpy Road To the Pros
Skip ahead seven years. Playing for Gilroy High School, Garcia was good enough to be chosen as the third-string quarterback for the Santa Clara County All-Star Game his junior year. "Even though I was a decent player, I wasn't a standout. I wasn't that guy who was just going to put people in awe,"Garcia recalls.
At six feet one inch tall, 185 pounds, Division I colleges weren't impressed. Everyone wanted an Elway or Marino-sized quarterback—6 feet 3 inches or taller and well over 200 pounds. Even so, Garcia hoped that a Division I school would give him a chance—a dream that came to an end when he broke his elbow during his senior season.
Eager to keep playing, Garcia headed to Gavilan Community College, where his dad was the coach. "Then it was a matter of continuing to develop, continuing to mature and allowing [my dad] to put in a structure that best utilized my skills and talents on the field. And that is when I really started to break out," Garcia says.
The scrappy quarterback excelled in Gavilan's pass-rich offense. The scouting report still described a guy not quite tall enough and not quite strong enough. His footwork looked awkward, and his mechanics were unorthodox. But all Jeff Garcia did was succeed—with one part talent, two parts hard work and three parts heart.
Despite his strong play, few noticed, except for local San Jose State University, which gave Garcia a scholarship in 1990. It took a year before he got any playing time, but by the time he was done Garcia had broken most of the small Division I school's passing records. Bill Walsh, the Stanford University coach who had coached the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl wins in the 1980s, was impressed when Garcia almost single-handedly upset Stanford in 1993. Walsh later sent a memo to every NFL team recommending they draft Garcia.
But the 1994 draft came and went without Garcia being picked. He couldn't even get an invitation to an NFL camp as a free agent. So Garcia took his strengths—his heart, his smarts, his accurate arm and his ability to throw on the run—and landed a spot with the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League. The CFL's wider, longer field, and wide-open rules, seemed like the perfect fit for Garcia's ability to play on the run.
With another scrambler, Doug Flutie, at quarterback, the Stampeders were the best team in the CFL. Garcia warmed the bench until Flutie got hurt in Garcia's second season with the team. With Flutie out, Garcia led the Stampeders to seven wins in a row, and the next season, Calgary let Flutie go to the Toronto Argonauts, rather than resigning him.
Garcia didn't look back. For the next three seasons, he dominated the CFL, and in 1998 he led the Stampeders to the league championship—the Grey Cup—while also winning the league's Most Valuable Player award.
The NFL Finally Calls
The NFL was finally ready to call. The Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, Jacksonville Jaguars and St. Louis Rams showed interest, but Garcia signed with the 49ers, where Bill Walsh had returned as general manager.
As a backup to future Hall of Famer Steve Young, Garcia was thrust into almost immediate action in 1999, when Young suffered a career-ending concussion in the third week of the season. Learning San Francisco's complicated "West Coast" offense under fire, Garcia struggled. San Francisco fans, who had spent the last 20 years watching Joe Montana and Young, were impatient with the unknown Garcia.
"There was one instance where our quarterback coach at the time, Greg Knapp, who is now our offensive coordinator, took me aside and put together a film of successful plays I had made in my first five starts with the 49ers," Garcia recalls. "And it kind of [brought back my confidence]. It showed me that I could play this game, but now I had to work on the consistency of my game… and I think that helped instill in me that I have the ability to play the game. Now I had to play it with confidence."
Armed with his confidence, Garcia broke out in 2000, passing for a 49ers record 4,278 yards, along with 31 touchdown passes and 414 yards rushing. The performance earned him his first of three consecutive Pro Bowl appearances, including last season when he guided the 49ers into the playoffs.
"I believe that I have somewhat been an overachiever," Garcia says. "Yes, there have been certain foundations that have allowed me to overachieve, like having a father who is a head football coach. So the mental part of the sport came kind of naturally, but the physical part is what had to catch up. That is where a lot of hard work came into play—trying to better myself all the time—trying to do whatever it took to give me that advantage on the football field. And that is really what carries over to today within me."
Q&A
Q: Hardest hitter in the NFL?
A: Brian Urlacher
Q: Biggest trash talker in the NFL?
A: Warren Sapp
Q: Best quarterback ever?
A: Joe Montana
Q: What's it like throwing to Terrell Owens?
A: It's exciting throwing to TO, just because you never know what is going to happen once the ball gets into his hands.
Q: Best moment of your career?
A: Winning the Grey Cup Championship in Calgary (with the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League)
Q: Favorite food?
A: Mexican food
Q: Favorite band?
A: U2
Q: Hobbies?
A: Playing basketball
Q: Favorite TV show?
A: "Fear Factor"
Q: Favorite movie?
A: Braveheart
Q: If you weren't a professional football player, what would you be?
A: I think a clothing designer…. I think after football, I will probably try to go into some sort of commentating, being able to speak about the game, being able to continue to be close in that way…. But I think deep down my passion deals with clothes, because I just love clothes, all sorts of clothes.
This article was reprinted with permission courtesy of Kickoff Magazine.