All-orange Belt Football POY, Joseph Garcia

State champion Garcia is Spartans all-time rusher

From the television interviews to podcasts to countless stories in newspapers throughout the Central Valley — you’d think you knew everything one could know about Strathmore High School’s star running back, Joseph Garcia, but more than likely you’d be wrong.

Strathmore’s all-time leading rusher and The Recorder’s 2017 All-orange Belt Football Player of the Year for the second year in a row, was a cornerstone to the undefeated Spartans winning Tulare County’s first-ever football state title, as well as back-to-back CIF Regional, Valley and East Sequoia League championships.

“We rode Joseph Garcia to a state championship,” SHS head coach Jeromy Blackwell happily declared after Strathmore (16-0, 5-0 ESL) won its’ school’s first state title with a 31-29 victory over Orange (133) in the CIF State Division 6-AA Championship game on Dec. 16 at Fred Kelly Stadium in Orange.

“It’s amazing to be the first one in Tulare County to win it. We accomplished a lot this year, and last year. But I think it was better this year because we actually won state,” said Garcia who had 223 yards and all four of the team’s touchdowns on 40 carries against Orange (13-3).

Garcia carried the ball for the Spartans nearly 60 percent of the time and racked up 2,849 yards and 49 touchdowns on 340 carries this season. Those video game numbers break Strathmore’s season record set by Garcia last season with 2,345 yards and 40 touchdowns on 323 carries.

“He relatively rewrote our whole record book,” Blackwell said. “He’s the No. 1 all-time rusher. He broke pretty much all of [the records]. Jesse Soria [running back from 2007-09], I think held most of the records, but he shattered them.”

This season Garcia set three seasons, two careers and one single-game record for the Spartans. Outside of his rushing yards for the season, he also set the season all-purpose record with 3,520 yards and season scoring record with 328 points on 53 touchdowns and 10 twopoint conversions. On Dec. 8 in Strathmore’s 49-35 revenge win in the CIF Norcal Regional Championship over St. Patrick-st. Vincent — the team that spoiled Strathmore’s chance at a state title last season with a field goal in the final seconds of the state championship game — Garcia carried the ball 44 times for 270 yards and five touchdowns, setting the Spartans record for most rushing attempts in a single game. “I’m just trying to make it harder for the other kids that are going to come up, so they could try harder trying to break my records, which will be good for the team,” the back-to-back ESL’S Most Valuable Player said.

And of course, with the Spartans making deeper playoff runs than any other team in program history, Garcia set not only the career rushing yard record with 6,350 yards as a three-year varsity player, but also the consecutive 100-yard game record with 22. He is also only the sixth player in CIF Central Section history to score 100 touchdowns, with his career total of 112 putting him at fifth best in CIF-CS history.

The most surprising part of all that? Garcia did it all calmly. Before every game, while other players were listening to music and getting pumped, Garcia said he just sat quietly in front of his locker.

“Damian [Valencia] tried to pump me up once and I had to tell him to stop,” he said. “If I get pumped up, I get angry. And if I get angry, I’ll hurt somebody.”

One of the nicest people you could ever meet according to his mother and grandmother, an angry Garcia makes for an even more explosive, unstoppable rusher. Opposing players continuously went after Garcia, but it never ended well for them, including in the state game where Blackwell said an Orange player twisted Garcia’s ankle.

“You would never do that to Joseph if you knew him because when Joseph plays angry, he’s unstoppable,” Blackwell said. “He goes en fuego and it’s impossible — every time that he’s gotten mad, he usually breaks a 60- or 70-yard touchdown. And he actually did two or three plays later, but it was called back for holding.”

Garcia knew players intentionally went for him, but more than anything, he knew they doubted him because of his size. At 5-foot-10 and 178 pounds, he’s not a particularly imposing player, but his hard-nosed running and love for trucking people means it takes an average of three players to bring him down.

“I like getting the ball,” Garcia said. “It’s fun hitting people. Just their reaction after because they see me [as] small. I’m not that big and they’re just like, ‘It’s a little Mexican running the ball.’ But whenever I hit them they’re like, ‘Oh, shoot.’”

Averaging 178.1 yards and 20.5 points a game with the help of an “amazing and big” offensive line, every game was a typical game for Garcia. However, his favorite was the team’s 53-52 double-overtime win over Hilmar (8-6) in the CIF State play-in game.

“It was back and forth, it was actually a good game,” Garcia said. “It was competitive. The fans were loud, really loud. We never quit.”

Garcia scored the game-winning point on a two-point conversion, finishing with 239 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. He also had 54 yards and one touchdown on five receptions against the Yellowjackets as well.

A simple guy who loves spaghetti and favorite part of Disneyland was a jumbo turkey leg, Garcia said that besides winning state his favorite part about this season was playing with his five cousins — Valencia, Eddie Trujillo, Alonso Acevedo, Andrew Bravo and Andre Bravo.

“I’ll miss playing with my cousins,” he said. “[This season] was better than last year. We had more family members on the team which made it more fun.”

Valencia, explained that sentiment saying, “Being able to have memories as cousins is great. But when you have the ability to create more memories and experiences that will last a lifetime on the football field doing what both of us love is [also] an amazing feeling.”

Since 2008, Garcia has played football with his cousins on Strathmore’s Pop Warner teams. Although he’s still deciding where he’ll play college next year, it’ll be one of the first times Garcia will play without family beside him.

“One of the many things I will miss next year when he goes off to college is going out every game knowing my cousin had my back and I had his,” Valencia said. “As well as knowing he was always going 100 miles an hour wanting and motivating everybody to do their best so we could get that win.”

Replacing Garcia is a nearly impossible task for the Spartans.

“He’s impossible to replace,” Blackwell said. “He’s a downhill runner, he’s an outside runner. He plays offense and defense and special teams. I mean how many touchdowns did we score on a kickoff return? He’s very special. He’s always there in the weight room, never making excuses even though he told us [he hated it]. But he always did it and he didn’t make excuses, he just did it. Got the job done. And I think that is what every football coach is always looking for.”