SEATTLE — Juan Garcia has a tough decision to make in the very near future, but whatever option he chooses, Washington’s injured center admits that his future as a Husky is in jeopardy.
After having an MRI, a CAT scan and meeting with doctors, Garcia said the prognosis on his Lisfranc injury is not a good one. His options are to wait four weeks to see if the injury will heal on it’s own — doctors told him there is a 60 percent chance that it won’t — or have surgery on his foot now and hope to possibly return late in the season. If he waits to see if it will heal and it doesn’t, then the surgery would take away any chance of a return. If the injury does heal on its own, Garcia said he will still be out for the first month of the season if not more.
If he elects to have surgery right away, Garcia concedes that his return might be more symbolic than anything else. Every time he discussed his options with reporters, it was clear that Garcia was still torn on what to do.
“If I decide to get surgery, it lets me come back and I can wear the uniform one last time and leave on my own terms,” he said. “Kind of say bye to everybody. Maybe come in for a play or two, which is kind of sad, and I don’t want to do that because it’s like trying to hang on. But if I wait for those four weeks and it does heal, then I can miss September and maybe October and maybe be full go and do something. But if those four weeks come and I’m not healthy, then there’s no goodbye or nothing. From that day on I’ll be a former Husky football player. That’s the thing that hurts the most.”
Garcia said his injury is less severe than the Lisfranc injury that sidelined former Husky quarterback Isaiah Stanback, but that “It might as well be” as bad given Garcia’s size and position.
Having missed two full seasons with injuries, Garcia was granted a sixth year of eligibility. He thought about leaving last year and pursuing an NFL career, but ultimately decided to come back. Had he decided to leave last season, Garcia might have heard his name called in this weekend’s draft.
The same day he hurt his foot, Garcia was named to the preseason watch list for the Outland Trophy, given to the country’s top interior lineman.
“It’s going to cross my mind,” he said when asked if he regretted coming back. “One of my main goals was to leave the University of Washington as an elite O-lineman and stuff. The last couple of years that I’ve been here, the O-line has been a question mark and has been embarrassed since I was here. And (recently) we’ve been kind of building momentum, and I’ve been taking pride, and then going into this last year, I was just so happy we’ve got an O-line and I was proud about it. It just kind of breaks me up that I’ve got to watch from the sidelines now.”
Matt Sedillo, who played one snap at center last year is the likely starter for next season unless the Huskies move another lineman over to center. Sedillo said Tuesday that he was confident he could handle being the starter, but admitted that Garcia’s are “very big shoes” to fill.
Washington’s offensive linemen said it was hard to watch their leader go down in practice Friday.
“Obviously losing Juan Garcia is a big, big hurt for us,” guard Casey Bulyca said. “He’s been around for so long, he’s been through so much and he’s been a leader. He came back for his sixth year for us. We’re going to miss him if he doesn’t come back, but in the long run I know that he doesn’t want us to sit around and feel bad for him.”
Garcia, who already has one degree and is working towards a second, said that even if there was a chance at earning a seventh year of eligibility, there is “no way” he would pursue that option.
Hasty suspended: J.R. Hasty, who was kept off the field for the first two weeks of spring practice for failing to “live up to all of the responsibilities of the football team” has been suspended from the team again, Tyrone Willingham announced Tuesday.
Hasty was back practicing with the team last week, but now his future with the team is in question once again.
“J.R. has been suspended from the team,” Willingham said. “His status as it stands for the spring game is that he will probably not play. And I have not made a final decision of what his status will be with the football team.”
Hasty, a 2005 graduate of Bellevue High School, was academically ineligible for the 2006 season, then briefly quit the team last year before coming back.
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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