Former Gamecock quarterback Stephen Garcia living and learning from past mistakes

Nowadays, Stephen Garcia rocks a full-grown, scruffy-looking beard. It’s his choice to do what he wants long after his playing days came to an end.

But when he sported the same beard during his college days, his head coach wasn’t a fan of it.

In 2011, Garcia was gearing up to face the Georgia Bulldogs as the starting quarterback for No. 12 South Carolina. When the team got to Athens, Steve Spurrier came up to him.

“He’s like, ‘You need to shave your face,’ and I was like, ‘I’m about to play Georgia in Athens. I’m not shaving my face like what are we talking about,” Garcia said in a Garnet Trust interview on 107.5 The Game. “He literally called me into his hotel room with our team psychiatrist and the team doctor and was like, ‘Why can’t I get this kid to listen to me and shave his face? Why can’t he do it? Why won’t he listen?’ And Dr. (Tim) Malone is sitting there like, ‘Stephen, why don’t you shave your face?’ I’m like, we’re playing Georgia who cares what my face looks like, man, what is the problem?”

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Spurrier, frustrated and out of options, told Garcia if he didn’t shave his face, he wouldn’t play. That’s when Garcia asked one question: “Okay, where’s the razor?”

Garcia, now with a clean-shaved look, helped the Gamecocks to a thrilling 45-42 win over the Bulldogs.

“After the game, he has his Sprite and he’s like, ‘See, you know we won because you shaved your face,” Garcia said. “I’m like, yeah, Melvin (Ingram) or (Jadaveon) Clowney, nobody had any other influence on the outcome of that game. It was because I shaved my face.”

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This was just one instance of Garcia showing defiance. More than a decade removed from his college days, there’s a lot that he wished he would have done differently.

Garcia marched to the beat of his own drum. He did things his way.

“Looking back, it’s like, man, if I would’ve just cut my hair, if I would’ve shaved my face, if I would’ve worn a collared shirt and khakis or whatever, I think I would’ve eliminated a lot of the head butting and a lot of back and forth with coach Spurrier. It was so stupid, so insignificant,” he said.

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While Garcia showed a lot of potential as a quarterback, it was his off-the-field drama that caught headlines. During his first few seasons, he was arrested for public intoxication and underage drinking.

Because of these occurrences, it led people to believe it impacted his play on the field, even during the best game of his career.

“I mean, even last night at Cantina, people were asking about it. And the one question that seems to be asked the most is were you drunk during that game? Were you hungover during that game?” Garcia said.

The game Garcia refers to No. 19 South Carolina’s upset win over No. 1 Alabama in 2010. He played some of his best football that day, throwing for 201 yards and three touchdowns on 17-of-20 passing.

Garcia has always been quick to shut down those rumors and instead leaves it up to the people to decide.

“It’s truly baffling, but at this point, it’s like yeah sure I was. Believe whatever you want to believe. I don’t really care anymore,” he said.

For a time, even after his playing days, Garcia said he was “just pissed off at the world for a long time” with the decisions he made as well as how his relationship was with Spurrier.

“I had nobody to blame but myself,” Garcia said. “I think coach Spurrier may have realized this too, but he could have coached me a little bit differently, because I’m not a robotic kind of guy. But he’s the coach and I’m the player so I needed to change my attitude a little bit more.”

“I mean, I would just say kind of recently, if I would’ve made better choices off-the-field, hell I’d probably still be playing to be honest with you.”

It’s been awhile since Garcia last played a down of football. After his time at Carolina ended in 2011, he went undrafted in the 2012 NFL Draft. He bounced around other professional leagues until 2018.

Since then, Garcia has stayed around the game, training the next generation of quarterbacks in his home state of Florida. He’s also been helping his son Memphys, who’s a quarterback at Steinbrenner High School.

After everything he’s been through, Garcia wants to make sure his son doesn’t mess up his opportunities as they come.

“He’s a typical 15-year-old. He’s locked in at some points and then at other points he’s, you know, ‘Hey, I want to go hang out with my girlfriend or I want to do this,'” Garcia said. “And I’m like, okay that’s fine, man, like you’ve got to have some sort of balance. But at the end of the day, if you want to do this … you’re going to have to sacrifice hanging out with your friends, hanging out with the girlfriends, doing that kind of stuff cause everybody’s got a quarterback trainer now, everybody’s got social media, everybody’s got this and that. So you’ve got to do more and above what everybody else is doing.”

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