Greetings. I am Uatu, The Watcher. I was assigned to your world by my Brotherhood to observe and record your development as a species. From my abode on the dark side of your earth’s moon, I watch, I catalog, and I report. While your advancement is impressive in many realms, you fail to grasp the basic nature of your own reality. You do not even realize that other realities exist alongside your own.

I, The Watcher, see all of these realities.

Allow me to demonstrate. I will select one of your average younglings and thereby demonstrate this coexistence of space-time alternatives:

Behold one Stephen Gary Garcia, a young man in the beginning of his adulthood. In your space-time, young Stephen is the erstwhile field general for one of your educational sporting teams.

But in other space-times, a younger Stephen decided to lead other groups. Behold these alternate – and equally valid – realities, which I select at random:

Earth Reality #30453: Stephen Garcia is the rising redshirt senior quarterback for the Gators of Florida. His head coach, one Urban Meyer, just signed a ten year extension to his contract. Garcia starts a fashion rage in Gainesville by foregoing the ubiquitous blue jean shorts of his contemporaries and instead dons [gasp] khaki shorts. Meanwhile Gamecock quarterback John Brantley constantly evokes his head coach’s ire by “not getting the ball out of his hands quick enough.”

Earth Reality #46921: Stephen Garcia is the returning starter for the Clemson Tiger University.  Head Coach Dabo (yes, in that reality a grown man can apparently be called “Dabo” as well) Swinney anoints Garcia as the next Joe Montana, and describes Stephen’s leadership, charity, and GPA in effusive – albeit simple – words (Side note, CTU still went 6-7 last year. That happened in every recorded reality save one, Reality #23452, where Georgia Tech runs a modern offense, and Dabo finished 5-7).  (Additional side note, upon exhausting his football eligibility, Garcia is immediately arrested for fifty unpaid parking tickets, three open container violations, two barroom brawls, and one high speed pass over a former coach’s daughter. When asked for a comment, Dabo answers with a perplexed “WHO?”, throws down a cherry bomb, and flees behind a mirrored screen).

Earth Reality #60471: Stephen Garcia is playing for the Cardinals of the University of Louisville. No one cares.

Earth Reality #21091: Stephen Garcia has graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Eastern Philosophy. He performs weekly in Athens bars as a beat poet.  He gave up football after his junior year because, as he put it, “those guys are a bunch of thugs.”

Earth Reality #10023: Stephen Garcia quits football after graduation and becomes a motivational speaker. He specializes in calling out individual members of the audience and comparing them unfavorably to the saintly-est of their coworkers. Says he learned the tactic “directly from an NCAA sanctioned program I once attended.”

Earth Reality #41204: As a rising sophomore at Tennessee, Stephen Garcia is expelled for urinating on Head Coach Lane Kiffin. His defense is that, having knocked the coach out with one backhanded slap, the laws of manhood dictate that he mark his kill. Tennessee refuses to reinstate him, but for perpetration of the deed he is awarded the Heisman, the Nobel, and the Congressional Medal of Honor by unanimous public acclimation. (Side note, David Reaves cried during the attack and the award ceremonies.  And later in bed. Again).

Earth Reality #16403: The State newspaper went bankrupt in 2007 trying to keep Joe Person supplied with hair gel. With no local newsprint gadflies, Stephen Garcia graduated on time with absolutely no disciplinary history.

Earth Reality #29981: Stephen Garcia was in the room when Auburn gave Cecil Newton a large and apparently heavy canvas sack embroidered with dollars signs. It might surprise you, Earthlings, to learn that almost all possible realities involve Auburn giving Cecil Newton some form of cash or gold. And much to The Watcher’s surprise, none of these realities result in even the slightest of penalties from the NCAA.

Earth Reality #39971: Stephen Garcia quit football after the 2008 Outback Bowl. He moved to Dallas, TX and works in construction management with his brother. After work he occasionally like to toss back a couple of frosty ones with his buddies. JUST LIKE ALL OF THE REST OF YOU.

Lo and Behold, Earthlings!� This small sample should show you the intricacies of the space-time continuum, and underscore the power and vision of The Watcher.

Oh, and before I return to my lunar abode, I leave you with one last word of wisdom, gleaned from my infinite observations:

#FREEGARCIA !!!!!

Every four years we hear the same refrain in politics: The public may like this candidate or that one, but in the end, Americans will vote for the candidate that they most want to drink a beer with.  Americans like leaders who are approachable, maybe a little bit messy, not too put together, even about to surprise (scare?) us. We like our leaders to be about this [] much unpredictable.

This preference pretty much applies across the board, and not just with politicians. Let me demonstrate: Name your favorite Star Wars character. You said ‘Darth Vader’ right? Or maybe you said ‘Han Solo’, but I guarantee you didn’t even think of Luke Skywalker. Why? Because Luke Skywalker is boring. Now, think of Gone with the Wind, and I’ll ask the same question. Rhett Butler right? Or maybe Scarlett O’hara, but definitely not Ashley or Melanie Wilkes. The Wilkes were kind, gentle . . .and lame. You see, we do like our heroes with a little bit of the Dark Side in them.

We like Mr. Hyde, not so much Dr. Jekyl.  Bruce Banner can be as cool and smart as all hell, but its the Verdant Colossus we’re dying to see. Sure we appreciated Liberaci, but we adored Jerry Lee.  We might respect Hillary (I said might, Buck), but Bill is the rock star.

Now to make it more relevant to the sporting world, which 70’s era quarterback is still making money in the business, upright Roger Staubach, or half-crazy common man Terry Bradshaw?

You get the idea.  Its a classic Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy. � Or, to put it another way, we want a leader that we can identify with on the most base of basic levels. Someone as twisted as we secretly recognize ourselves to be. We want a quarterback – to pick an example entirely at random – with a problem or two. Americans, I believe, want a quarterback they can drink a beer with.

Enter Stephen Achilles Garcia.

Before we get deeper in the analysis here, let me acknowledge a few things that are obvious about the Gamecocks’ erstwhile quarterback. The first thing is, of course, the hair. Its almost a mullet, in much the same way that Lake Murray can look like an ocean, but really isn’t. See, Stephen wouldn’t wear something as passe as a mullet, even if ironically. Irony is not Stephen’s rhetorical device of choice. No, instead Stephen opts for deep heartfelt stares as his mode of persuasion. And mullet or no, when he pinches his dark tresses back behind his ears, your ladyfriend sniffs the air gently and her love for you dies just a little bit. The hair might be cut tight now, but trust me, like Samson of old, Garcia knows wherein his power lies.  The hair will return.

Then there’s Stephen’s grooming habits. I hate shaving, don’t you?  Sure you do,but neither of us hate it as much as Garcia.  Needed twice a day, his facial swatch only gets a perfunctory swipe twice a football season. Oh, and don’t be thrown by the golf-shirt-and-eyeblack look in the post-game press conference. He did, in fact,take a post-game shower and change clothes, he just reapplied the eyeblack before the presser to remind everyone that he’s a warrior.

Then there are the statistics. He never leads in any category EVER. But he’s close man, he’s freakin’ close. And if you weren’t such an uptight, Apollonian nerdwad, you would appreciate the everyman poetry of his not-as-of-yet statistical consummation.

Yeah, the middle name throws you. And yeah, he’s got some crazy Greek word tattoed on his inner arm, but we all understand that the name and the tat are babe candy at, respectively, Athens coffee shops and Gainesville biker bars.  What kind of crazy crap have you done in the past to score some lovin’?  See, ol’ Achilles is right there with you.

Now some may say that Garcia comes with baggage. Some might point to his history with the team and say its time for Carolina to move on. Some may also point out that he has failed to demonstrate leadership and has let the HBC down.

To all of those naysayers I respond with a barbaric ‘Phfffttt!’ Garcia’s baggage includes a couple of too public beers, and couple of too public women, and one juvenile prank. Not exactly on par with Auburn openly paying for players, or Georgia having half their scholarship athletes arrested for felonies last summer. And time to move on? From what, the first quarterback to lead us to a conference trophy in my lifetime? HBC let down?  Heck, he’s been let down by every quarterback he’s ever known short of the one who’s initials are S.O.S.

I’m rambling around to arrive at a point, and the point is this: We love you, Stephen, and we want you back.  Not in August, or in a month, but yesterday. We want you back yesterday because we want to believe that someone just like us can succeed. You are just like us; just as flawed, just as promising. But it’s not as good of a story-not as American of a story- if you make your comeback at Louisville or  Marshall or some other God-awful place.  Stick it out here, make the comeback of all comebacks here, and I’ll join the throngs celebrating you as the greatest quarterback in Carolina history.

Heck, I’ll even buy you a beer.