Intersting stuff from Juan Garcia and a quick practice report

Published 4:47 pm Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Let’s get a quick practice report out of the way, then we’ll move onto some good stuff from Juan Garcia.

The only apparent surprise injury is to Donald Butler, who was in a red jersey. There has been no mention of what his injury might be, but we’ll try to find out tomorrow.

Senio Kelemete, who had his knee scoped last week, was in red and riding an exercise bike. David Freeman continues to miss practice with an ankle injury.

Now, on to the comment’s of sixth-year senior Juan Garcia. Garcia has been avoiding the media most of the year because, as he puts it, he’s a sore loser and is afraid of what might come out of his mouth. But he said today that he’s taking a better outlook trying to enjoy his final four games as a Husky, and part of that new outlook apparently involves talking to us once again.

Here’s some of what he said:

How’s the season going?

“It’s frustrating, but it’s going. I’ve got four games left as a Husky and I’m going to try to enjoy them as much as I can, because it’ll be over before I know it. I can sit there and pout, cry about the way the season has gone or just enjoy the time that’s left. There’s nothing we can do about what’s happening. All the stuff that’s being said about us is going to be said anyway.”

Is it safe to say you’re the most passionate person on the team?

“Yeah, I’d agree with that. There’s a lot of guys that are passionate too, but this is eating away at me. It’s frustrating. I don’t whether to run, whether to scream, I feel like crying. I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of emotions going through me right now.”

How do you get those emotions out?

“I told my guys before the SC game that all season I’ve been fighting demons. That I’m not sure if I’m the same guy, that my foot is not good, I’m out of shape, this and that, and I’ve just been fighting it and fighting it and fighting it and not enjoying it, and after a game I feel even worse. Finally the last two weeks I was just like, screw this crap. I lost a lot of weight, got in shape. Like I said, I can sit there and cry about it, moan about it and do all that stuff, and it’s not going to change a thing. Or I can just switch it around and let it go and just enjoy whatever happens and just go out there and have fun. And coach said at the SC game I had the best game I had all year… The whole time I was just having fun. I don’t care what the scoreboard was, I was just out there like, ‘man this is why I play the game.’ So I’m just going to try to take that mentality into the rest of the games and enjoy myself.”

Do you ever feel like other players aren’t matching your intensity, your passion?

“Yeah. That’s why I get frustrated with some of the guys. It’s not their fault, I guess when the season goes like this… I told some of the guys, ‘I don’t know when this Husky thing is going to hit you. It might be 10 years from now—I bleed purple and gold right now—maybe it’ll be next year, maybe it’ll be… you’ll probably never get it. You’ll probably never bleed purple and gold, you’ll probably never care. But the day it does hit you, you’re going to be consumed and you’re going to look back at these days and you’re going to regret that you didn’t play your heart out.’”

Does that make it hard to be teammates with them then?

“A little bit. Some guys, yeah. Sometimes I look at them and I’m like, man, I just feel like kicking them off the team or something. But like I said, it’s not their fault, it’s just the environment they came into. They were probably big-time recruits coming out of wherever they came out of and they’re like, ‘Man, I should have gone to so-and-so school’ and this and that, and kind of feel like they kind of screwed up by coming here. In a way it’s frustrating, but then again, winning cures everything and we haven’t been winning. If you ain’t winning, you kind of fall apart.”

Given what’s gone on this year, any regrets you didn’t just have the surgery and move on in your life?

“No, not at all. There were times early on kind of, but if I would have got the surgery, it would have been killing me being like, ‘man, I wish I was out there.’ I’m glad I’m out here with these guys and losing with them instead of just watching it happen. It’s kind of tough, but hey, I don’t care man, I’ve got to wear the uniform one last time. I don’t know if people understand how much I appreciate this university. This university has been great to me. I don’t care what the score is or how the season goes, I got a lot out of this university, and it took care of me and has given me an opportunity for the rest of my life that I would have never gotten if I hadn’t come here.”

If you were to give advice to AD on the coaching hire, what would you say?

“You know what, I don’t know about that because I really like coach Willingham and the stuff he did. I always said that I think coach Willingham’s downfall was that he was too loyal to some guys on the team. He always wanted to give a guy an opportunity instead of cutting him loose. He always wants people to succeed and some of that came back and bit him in the ass. Some of those guys didn’t give the effort that he expected out of them, and instead of getting rid of a guy and brining someone else in, because he believed in that guy and that guy never believed back in him. So I think coach Willingham is a great coach. You can see by the character that he has, he’s started something and he’s going to finish it. He’s already been kicked off the team or whatever, he knows he’s not going to be here, but he’s going to finish this thing through. He’s got five years left on his contract, just give him last year and see what happens. I think there’s too much youth on the team.”

Are people still going into games confident they can win?

“I don’t know about lately, and maybe it’s just me and maybe I’m just foolish, but I go into games thinking, man, ‘maybe something is going happen, the ball is going to go our way this game or something like that.’ There are a majority of guys that feel that way. Maybe after the first quarter you’re like, ‘[crap], here we go again,’ but we go into the game pumped up. When I go to the hotel I’m like, ‘maybe this is going to be our first win of the year,’ and when I start getting ready I’m like, ‘this is going to be it, I’m going to finally celebrate today.’ Then it doesn’t happen and the first two or three days I’m kind of down and stuff like that, but around Tuesday, Wednesday I come back and focus on the next opponent.”