Senior Spotlights: Men's Soccer
Jan. 13, 2010
Senior Spotlights: Men’s Soccer
BY: ERIC PATTEN
Irving Garcia’s hometown of San Luis, Arizona is 26.5 square miles. Its population is roughly the same as the number of undergraduates at UC Irvine. And it’s so hot in the summer that you can almost feel water evaporating from the nearby Colorado River.
San Luis is a speck of a town. Garcia, who stands 5-5, is often the smallest player on the soccer field, but after collecting a heap of awards in two years at UCI, he is perhaps the town’s most gargantuan former resident.
“When people talk about Irving they say this little guy, he’s so creative, so skillful,” UCI soccer coach George Kuntz said.
Broadcaster Mark Roberts calls him “Swerving Irving” and his teammates affectionately refer to him as “Irvingho”.
Garcia’s creativity and ability to score the ball helped the senior midfielder/forward twice be named first team All-Big West and Soccer America’s MVPs Second Team in 2008. This year, in addition to winning Big West Player of the Year honors, he was selected to two All-American teams (NSCAA third-team and College Soccer News second team). Goal.com also named him to their second-team “Team of the Season” and he was among TopDrawerSoccer.com’s best players in the nation.
When describing Garcia’s talents, Kuntz chooses words like quickness, speed and irreplaceable. But the bottom line, he says, is that Garcia “makes other players better and that’s the mark of a great player.”
“If you look at his assists, here and at the junior college, he’s averaging eight or nine a year,” Kuntz added. “He’s a humble athlete and team guy.”
In 12 of the Anteaters’ 22 games this season, Garcia tallied at least one point, including nine assists. This unselfishness is partly why Garcia is well-liked by his teammates and coaches.
“Irving is like a brother that I made here at Irvine,” said senior Carlos Aguilar, a teammate of Garcia’s for two years. “We hang out with each other and played great on the field, too. It’s been a great experience.”
In fact, Garcia is so concerned about team success that he insists his individual accomplishments are diminished because UCI did not advance beyond the second round of the NCAA championship. The Anteaters lost to Stanford, 1-0, after earning a bye in the first round.
“I feel like I would give all of those awards up to get two goals against Stanford,” Garcia said. “To be honest, I get the awards but they don’t mean anything to me unless I accomplish my goals. One of my goals was to get to the final four and that didn’t happen.”
Prior to transferring to UCI, Garcia played two seasons at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona, where his team won the 2007 National Championship. He said that while his experience at Yavapai helped prepare him for the speed of the NCAA game, he also thought that San Luis High School and his time spent playing pick-up games in Mexico helped mold him into the player he is today.
“I played in Mexico and in Yuma,” Garcia said. “When I played in Mexico, I played on dirt fields. It was way harder in Mexico. Trying to control the ball was the hardest part.”
Kuntz echoed some of the challenges that Garcia must have faced.
“You have to change your game to adapt to the conditions. You can’t send passes too long because you never know where it will bounce, if it hits a rock or an uneven part of the ground.”
The playing conditions were one thing, but Kuntz also said that Garcia came from “very humble beginnings”.
According to Andy Wait, a former math teacher at San Luis High School, you can usually measure the level of poverty in a community by the number of students receiving free or reduced lunch at the school At San Luis High that number sometimes exceeds 90-percent.
“Sports are not that big of a priority in San Luis,” Wait said. “A lot of times kids don’t take criticism well and things like that and end up quitting. Irving’s the opposite of that. He really is different. Grades were another thing that weren’t that important. But Irving always had As and Bs on his report cards.”
Wait, who is now a Vice Principal at Ron Watson Middle School in Yuma, referred to Garcia as an inspiration for the community, on and off the field.
“I come from the Midwest and am not really that big into soccer, but I really loved watching that kid play,” he said. “He is a great role model for that community (San Luis). His success is a good thing to have.”
For Garcia, who is as quiet and reserved as they come, being an inspiration is not something he would consider. But practically everyone he comes in contact with is struck by a positive memory.
Kuntz said that prior to UCI’s first road game of the 2009 regular season, against Santa Clara, the Anteaters were tense and possibly a little nervous. “And then there’s Irving,” Kuntz said. “Juggling a ball and singing. He just makes everybody happy. It really helped loosen everybody else up.”
Later in the season, a dad at an AYSO camp in Rancho Santa Margarita, California told Kuntz, “My son doesn’t know a single player on Real Salt Lake (the reigning Major League Soccer champions) and only a couple of people on the Galaxy, but he wants to be a pro soccer player because of Irving.”
When asked about the possibility of becoming a professional himself, Garcia, with humility all so typical of him, shrugs off the notion.
“I’m not sure. I don’t like to talk about the future,” he said.
After a brief pause, his eyes lit up, as if struck with the idea for the first time, and said.
“It’s been my dream since I was a little kid to be a professional soccer player.”
Beginning January 8, Garcia will participate in the 2010 Adidas MLS Combine, a showcase for 62 of the best NCAA Division-I athletes. The combine concludes two days prior to the MLS SuperDraft to be held on January 14.
Kuntz believes that it might take some time to develop, but ultimately Garcia could make a team that drafts him extremely happy. “He had a great college career,” the coach said. “And I hope he will have a great professional career too.”
At UCI, Garcia left a more important legacy than merely points and victories. Kuntz said, “For us it was a big decision to bring him here, so it was important for us that Irving be successful, but you can never expect this level of success. He left a legacy of work and he clearly showed younger players how to lead by example.”
Head coach George Kuntz said, “When the lights go on, Carlos shows up.”
Kuntz meant that Aguilar, who played two years at UC Irvine after transferring from Taft College, usually performs his best in the team’s most important games. For example, in the semi-finals of the Big West Tournament, Aguilar scored both of the Anteaters’ goals to help defeat Cal Poly, 2-1.
“The big game is the best feeling,” Aguilar said. “Those are the games
that bring out the best in me… I figured if I bring my A-game and my
teammates bring their A-game then there’s no doubt that we’ll leave with a
victory.”
As a junior, Aguilar appeared in all of UCI’s games, but mostly as what he termed a “super-sub”. According to Kuntz, Aguilar, in his senior season, was more of a multi-use, utility player.
“We recruited him as a forward,” Kuntz said. “But we’ve asked him to fill a role as a midfielder. We need his ability to hold the ball in that position.”
For Aguilar, he was willing to do whatever it took to get on the field.
“He [coach Kuntz] managed to find a way to get me on the field,” he said. “I just wanted to play. Whatever the team needs, then I’ll fit in with whatever the coach wants me to do. I ended up playing all over the midfield. It feels good to know you can play any position because you can fit in in anybody’s system.”
While it may have been difficult to define a specific position, Aguilar
certainly had a knack for putting the ball in the back of the net. In 22
games this season, he scored six goals, including three in the postseason.
Following graduation, Aguilar intends to continue pursuing soccer, but no matter what he is grateful for his experience at UCI.
“The fans and their support really helped us bring our best to the field,” he said.“And I’m really looking forward to coming back and watching UCI and the new family I made here in Irvine.”
When Kevin Santora arrived at UC Irvine from Bellarmine College Prep in Los Altos, California, he said there were a lot of doubts about how successful he could be.
“I remember coming in [to UCI] my coaches told me that they didn’t think I would start because we had some other guys returning,” Santora, a senior midfielder/defender, said. “After a short time in my freshman season I was starting.”
From 2006 to 2009, Santora started 59 of the Anteaters’ 62 games, including all 22 games his senior year, when he was named a co-captain.
“It’s all about a mentality,” he said. “A belief in yourself, a positive mindset.”
That belief helped Santora become what head coach George Kuntz called an “iron man”, playing through pain, injury and illness to make a positive contribution on the field.
“I come to practice and set an example, I guess,” Santora said. “I always think about the quote: ‘you’re not a captain because they make you captain. You’re a captain because of how you act’.”
Santora accumulated seven points in 2009, including a game-winning goal against San Diego State early in the season, but he consistently made plays that rarely show up in the box score. And while his final game did not end the way he had dreamed, Santora’s effort, along with that of his teammates left a lasting impression.
“Losing (1-0 to Stanford) was unexpected,” Santora said. “But it’s not like we didn’t play our hearts out.”
