Florida walk-on Garcia stops sexual assault
A Florida walk-on turned hero early Thursday morning when he stopped a sexual assault behind a Gainesville bar, according to police.
Cristian Garcia, a fourth-year junior from Miami, works security at a Gainesville establishment, Cantina 101. At around 2:20 a.m. Thursday he was taking out garbage when he noticed a man and woman having sex.
The report states Garcia soon noticed the 19-year-old woman was unconscious.
“I knew there was no way she could be giving consent,” Garcia told First Coast News.
Gainesville Police later would arrest Christopher Lee Shaw, whom Garcia helped identify, and charged him with sexual battery.
Garcia told police Shaw’s friends were watching the assault take place, leading Garcia to grab Shaw’s shoulders and tell him stop. Shaw became violent and threw a few punches before he ran off.
“I hold strong moral values and I don’t think anyone should be taken advantage of in that kind of way,” Garcia told First Coast News.
Interviewed later at the hospital, the unidentified woman told GPD she did not consent to having sex with the man. According to the report, she tried to push him away “but was physically helpless because she was going in and out of consciousness due to her level of intoxication.”
Garcia has appeared in one game for the Gators, recording two assisted tackles during the Citrus Bowl loss to Michigan.
ACC: Clemson star quarterback Deshaun Watson is driven by the goal of winning another Atlantic Coast Conference championship and returning to the College Football Playoff’s title game.
He also knows the Tigers’ biggest obstacle sits in their division: Florida State.
“We have to start over,” Watson said Friday at the ACC Kickoff preseason media days. “Last year’s wins, touchdowns or stops isn’t going to do anything for us this year. We know we have a target on us and we have to go 10 times harder to get where we want to go this year than we did last year.”
Make no mistake: The Tigers and Seminoles are dominating the league in addition to the Atlantic Division home they share. They have won the past five ACC championship games. They haven’t lost a game to another division opponent in approaching four years. Both have carried an unbeaten record into the four-team playoff to follow FSU’s national-championship season in 2013.
And for the record, they meet Oct. 29 in Tallahassee, Fla.
“That’s a game that the fans and the players, our whole staff looks forward to,” said FSU’s Dalvin Cook, who led the league with 1,691 yards rushing last year. “They recruit talent just like we do. … That’s just becoming one of the rivalries, between Florida State and Clemson — and I love it.”
EASTERN KENTUCKY: Maty Mauk understands that secondguessing might accompany his second chance at Eastern Kentucky.
But following a tumultuous junior season at Missouri, the quarterback is looking forward to a fresh start with the Colonels. Mauk was suspended three times in four months before being dismissed in January by new Tigers coach Barry Odom after a video surfaced on Twitter showing someone snorting a powdery white substance.
Mauk denied he was the person snorting the substance in the video, which he said was made “a couple of years ago.” But Mauk acknowledged making a bad choice by being present when the substance was being snorted and is working to show he’s “living a clean life” and has learned from the incident.
“I put myself in a situation that night and kind of acted like I did it,” Mauk said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It was one of those situations I wish I could’ve taken myself out of, but I had to learn from it and haven’t been around anything like that for years now.”
Mauk said the first suspension came while he was dealing with his father Mike’s cancer surgery last fall. He acknowledged doing things that merited disciplinary actions and said other behavior “snowballed” into more suspensions.
As much as Mauk hurt for his father, Mike Mauk said he ached even more not being able to be there for his son during his ordeals.
“Maty’s struggle was worse for me because he’s my son and I know he wasn’t the man he was portrayed to be,” said the elder Mauk, who has recovered and looks forward to coaching high school football in Springfield, Mo.
But Mike Mauk also believes Maty will benefit from his setbacks.
“You go through things to find out who you are and where you look to for faith and guidance,” Mike said. “Those things determine your character.”