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Garcia Gets His Chance To Prove The Doubters Wrong

Tribune File Photo by CLIFF MCBRIDE

Jeff Garcia gives his shoes to a fan after the win over the Atlanta Falcons Sunday afternoon at Raymond James Stadium.

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 23, 2007

Updated: 12/22/2007 11:33 pm

SAN FRANCISCO - Jeff Garcia is home for the holidays. There can't be more joy to his world. His wife is expecting their first child. And there's the bouncing baby playoff team Garcia hit town with Friday. The Bucs wouldn't be close to the postseason without their Cinderella Man.

There will be a tailgate party before the Bucs play the 49ers today. The masters of ceremony will be Bob and Linda Garcia, Jeff's parents. Bobby, a local legend himself, who coached Jeff in junior college, has the portable barbecue pit ready for the stadium parking lot. Hundreds will attend. People will know that Gilroy was here.

Gilroy is where Jeff Garcia grew up. It's a town of about 50,000 roughly 90 miles south of San Francisco. It's filled with Jeff Garcia believers. Gilroy has been waiting for this game. "I know I have," Bobby Garcia said.

Deep down, the same goes for his son. There has always been an I'll-show-you quality to Jeff Garcia's football life, a fire in his belly to prove doubters wrong. Today is one of those days. Today he plays the 49ers.

He plays the team of his childhood heroes, his team for his first five NFL seasons. He was the Niners quarterback, just like he dreamed. "So many great things happened," Garcia said. The 49ers pushed him out the door after the 2003 season. Even before that, the dream had become a nightmare.

Now look.

"To be with a team looking toward the playoffs ..." Garcia said. "This is the perfect time, Christmas time, to be with family, to play at home."

Home.

Walsh Was A Believer

You start on the farm in Gilroy, with Jeff throwing a football to his friend Tony Alanis.

"We'd pretend to be Montana throwing to Dwight Clark on 'The Catch,'" Alanis said.

You start with the 49ers.

Jeff Garcia starts with the late Bill Walsh.

"He was the guy who brought me to San Francisco," Garcia said.

Bill Walsh believed.

After making the 49ers champions, Walsh had returned to college coaching at Stanford. The Cardinal nearly lost to San Jose State because of State's scrawny quarterback. That Garcia kid is a winner, Walsh decided. When Garcia wasn't drafted. Walsh tried to talk his NFL friends into signing Garcia. No one did. Garcia went to Canada.

"Bill was still our guy," Bobby Garcia said. "When Jeff did great in Canada, Bill brought him home."

It was 1999. Montana and Steve Young cast long shadows. San Francisco fans wanted more. It was no win for any new quarterback.

But Jeff Garcia won.

"Jeff thrives on being the underdog," said Skip Bloom, who played for Bobby in college and coached Jeff in high school.

Garcia went to three Pro Bowls. He set 49ers passing records and led the franchise back to the postseason. He lived the dream. He was the life of the party, on the field and off it. His nomadic existence was over. He was proven.

"I'm a very loyal person and never imagined I'd be playing for other teams," Garcia said. "There was a wall in the training facility in Santa Clara, the 10-year wall. It has the players who have been with the organization 10 years or more. I walked by it every day on my way to meetings. It was just a wall I imagined my face would be on it one day."

In the 2002 season. Garcia rallied the 49ers as they overcame a 24-point hole to beat the Giants 39-38 in an NFC wild card game.

"The Giants game was the ultimate high," he said.

The 49ers were thumped in Tampa the next week by Jon Gruden's eventual Super Bowl champion Bucs. Garcia threw three interceptions. That was the beginning.

The 2003 season, Garcia's last at home, was filled with everything you could imagine, and things you couldn't. "It was a damn shame," Bobby Garcia said.

Garcia fought injuries. Receiver Terrell Owens demanded that Garcia be replaced. T.O. constantly bashed Garcia. The 49ers finished 7-9. Garcia was booed. Radio callers were so brutal that Bobby began phoning in himself ("Bob from Gilroy") to defend his boy.

Jeff Garcia also denied reports that he was gay. Owens kept that up after he left San Francisco.

"With all the great things that had happened in such a short time, to all of a sudden battling for the security of who you are," Jeff Garcia said. "I held a lot of that inside."

Bobby doesn't:

"If I saw Terrell Owens lying on the side of the road, I'd drive right by him."

Shortly after the 2003 season, trying to forget, Garcia and some friends attended a San Jose Sharks hockey game.

"I'm at the game and my face flashes up on the screen," Garcia said. "Half the stadium boos, half the stadium kind of cheers ... I wanted to leave the stadium right then."

On the way home, Garcia was arrested on suspicion of DUI (he later pleaded guilty and got three years probation). The morning after, he fought back tears during a news conference as he apologized.

"That was probably the lowest point I ever felt as a human being and as a role model," Garcia said.

Garcia and the 49ers already had begun negotiations to restructure his contract. The 49ers told him they wanted to slash his salary in half. That's when Garcia knew. He eventually was released as part of a salary dump. He was a nomad again.

"I had to accept it at the time," Garcia said. "I always believed I would be a 49er my entire career. That was basically cut in half, because I felt like I have a lot more football left in me."

The Bucs are 9-5. The 49ers are 4-10. They're 17-45 since Garcia left.

Put that on the wall.

He Never Stopped Dreaming

There will be a tailgate today at Monster Park. "A genuine Mexican barbecue; you name it, we'll have it," Bobby Garcia said. His boy is in town on his way to the playoffs.

Jeff Garcia was still a backup for Philadelphia when the Eagles played at San Francisco last season. He was itching to go in late in a blowout Eagles win, but never did. "I guess they didn't trust me yet," Garcia said with a smile.

Naturally, he led the Eagles to the playoffs after Donovan McNabb was injured. Naturally, the Eagles didn't keep him.

Now he's back.

He'll remember the good times.

"I really hope he gets cheered," Bobby Garcia said.

Jeff Garcia lived the dream.

He lost the dream.

But he never stopped dreaming.

Pass the tortillas, Bobby.

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