South Carolina Dismisses QB Garcia at LinesMaker

South Carolina Dismisses QB Garcia

COLUMBIA, S.C. —Stephen Gar­cia won’t get a sixth chance to play quar­ter­back for No. 15 South Carolina.

Gar­cia, who had been sus­pended and brought back to the team five pre­vi­ous times, was dis­missed Tues­day for fail­ing an alco­hol test, a per­son famil­iar with the deci­sion said. The per­son spoke to The Asso­ci­ated Press on con­di­tion of anonymity because South Car­olina had not announced specif­i­cally why Gar­cia had been kicked off the team.

The per­son told the Gar­cia had agreed to undergo peri­odic tests for the pres­ence of any alco­hol as a con­di­tion of his reinstatement.

Ath­letic direc­tor Eric Hyman would only say that Gar­cia was released after the fifth-year senior failed to meet agreed-upon guidelines.

“Being a student-athlete at the Uni­ver­sity of South Car­olina is a priv­i­lege, not a right and we remind all of our student-athletes that there are con­se­quences for their actions,” Hyman said in a statement.

Gar­cia told The in a text mes­sage Tues­day that he was “shocked and com­pletely flab­ber­gasted to be hon­est” by the dis­missal. He said he would have a full state­ment later in the week.

The quar­ter­back was sus­pended from all team activ­i­ties in April for unac­cept­able con­duct at a life-skills sem­i­nar. He was con­di­tion­ally approved to work­out with team­mates in May, then rein­stated fully last August just before foot­ball camp began.

Hyman and coach Steve Spurrier said then Gar­cia had to live up to sev­eral reg­u­la­tions to keep his spot in the program.

“Unfor­tu­nately,” Hyman con­tin­ued, Gar­cia “has not been able to abide by those guide­lines and there­fore for­feited his posi­tion on the roster.”

Gar­cia started 34 games, includ­ing four this sea­son, for the Game­cocks since arriv­ing on cam­pus in Jan­u­ary 2007. He was demoted to sec­ond string behind sopho­more Con­nor Shaw on Oct. 3 by Spurrier for incon­sis­tent play and did not take part in a 54–3 blowout of Ken­tucky last Saturday.

Spurrier was asked ear­lier Tues­day if Gar­cia would be Shaw’s backup when the Game­cocks travel to Mis­sis­sippi State on Saturday.

“We’ll see how all that works out this week,” Spurrier said.

About an hour later, Gar­cia was gone.

The dis­missal ends a tur­bu­lent tenure for the once-promising quar­ter­back, who helped the Game­cocks to the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence East­ern Divi­sion and was expected to do it again this season.

He threw for 3,059 yards and 20 TDs a year ago as the Game­cock played in their first SEC title game.

Garcia’s final sea­son, though, got off to a rough start. He was sus­pended for a week of spring ball for vio­lat­ing team rules dur­ing the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta. Gar­cia promised then it would be the last time he found trou­ble at South Carolina.

But less than two weeks later, he was sus­pended a fifth time and Spurrier sug­gested pub­licly that Gar­cia might choose to graduate—he earned his soci­ol­ogy degree in May—and trans­fer to another school for his final season.

Gar­cia, though, pledged to stick it out and Spurrier praised his ded­i­ca­tion and improved atti­tude. Gar­cia shaved his beard and cut his hair to Spurrier’s lik­ing and appeared ready to deliver on South Carolina’s high expectations.

When Gar­cia met with the media in August he said he did not undergo for­mal coun­sel­ing ses­sions since his spring sus­pen­sion, only a few dis­cus­sions with team doc­tors. When asked if he had a prob­lem with alco­hol, Gar­cia answered “Neg­a­tive, no.”

Even after Spurrier selected Shaw to start South Carolina’s opener with East Car­olina, Gar­cia stayed sharp and came off the bench to rally the Game­cocks to a 56–37 victory.

Garcia’s num­bers, how­ever, did not match those he put up a sea­son ago. His com­ple­tion per­cent­age fell from more than 64 in 2010 to less than 52 this fall. He had nine inter­cep­tions and just four touch­down passes when Spurrier sat him fol­low­ing South Carolina’s only loss, 16–13 to Auburn on Oct. 1.

Gar­cia stood on the side­lines dur­ing the Ken­tucky game, cheer­ing on Shaw and two other reserve quarterbacks—Andrew Clif­ford and Dylan Thompson—who played against the Wild­cats. Spurrier had said Gar­cia had an elbow issue after the Auburn loss.

Shaw threw for 311 yards and four touch­downs. He was named the SEC’s offen­sive player of the week for his performance.

Spurrier said he was sad that Garcia’s career ended this way.

“We all feel like we’ve given Stephen numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties to be a student-athlete here at South Car­olina. Obvi­ously, he has cho­sen not to fol­low the guide­lines of his rein­state­ment con­tract,” Spurrier said in a state­ment. “We wish him the best.”

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