A Guy You Want On Your Team
Aug 24, 2023 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Here we are, less than two weeks until No. 16 Kansas State kicks off one of its most highly-anticipated seasons in recent memory, and here he is in the flesh, RJ Garcia II, a 20-year-old sophomore wide receiver, who during the offseason blew up on K-State social media as the star host of "Cats Talk," his dry wit and mischievous smile accompanying 4-minute segments in which he interviewed Kobe Savage and Will Howard and Deuce Vaughn and Felix Anudike-Uzomah and others, causing them to awkwardly peel back layers, and laugh. Today, there is no laughter. Not after a grueling fall camp and not with the 107 degree temperatures outside and not with K-State preparing for a Big 12 Championship title defense this fall.
Today, Garcia is sporting a black Sugar Bowl long-sleeve t-shirt, a gold rope chain with a No. 3 tight against his neck, and he's wearing black Powercat shorts, white Nike socks and black Gucci slides at the Vanier Family Football Complex. Today, he's pushing off talk about his dry wit, which made him a Manhattan star, and he's embracing his role as a starter, boasting potential as a prominent pass-catching weapon that could make him a standout for the Wildcats.
"Hopefully, I make a lot of plays, catch lot of balls, and score a bunch of touchdowns," he says, "but I'm more focused on winning games."
The games, yeah, the games are what he's about. His K-State coaches and teammates champion his competitive fire. "My family hates playing board games with me," he says. His high school coach, Dominic Ciao back home at Berkeley Prep in Tampa, Florida, says that "RJ's relentless urge to dominate and always be perfect and his desire to strive for greatness in everything he did" stands out the most. K-State head coach Chris Klieman says Garcia was one of the offensive standouts of fall camp.
"Route running, confidence, coming in and out of breaks, catching the ball with authority, getting up field, communicating, leadership, lining up younger kids," Klieman says. "I mean, RJ has really taken on another role from a leadership standpoint, and his play has gotten better and better, too."
It's been eight months since Garcia made his on-field splash, when under the lights at AT&T Stadium, the 6-foot, 176-pounder caught a 25-yard touchdown from Howard to lift the Wildcats to a 21-10 lead over No. 3 TCU in the Big 12 title game, and it's been eight months since Garcia listened to Vaughn, his close friend, predict, "Man, RJ, I think you're going to catch a touchdown in this game," and it's been eight months since Garcia looked up videos of college football championship games, saw the confetti, and manifested in his mind that the Wildcats would be swimming in confetti as well.
"Life is good," Garcia posted on Twitter on December 3 along with a photo of him laying on a field of confetti.
In the midst of all this, during a season in which Garcia showed flashes that he could star on the football field, he let his personality shine through. He gets his seriousness from his dad and his fun side from his mom. Howard cannot look at him without breaking into a grin because that's the kind of guy Garcia is, and every team needs a Garcia.
"He's so fun all the time and it's an infectious personality," Howard says. "Every morning, he gets everybody going. He puts a smile on my face because he's always in a good mood, and he's always going to make you laugh."
After last season, former K-State football director of creative media Alec Handlin approached Garcia about an opportunity. Handlin asked Garcia to interview teammates on camera. Little could anybody predict what was going to come next.
Garcia: "Have you always been small?"
Vaughn: "Yes."
Garcia: "If you had a superpower, what would it be?"
Howard: "Always wanted to fly."
Garcia: "I thought you'd say speed, because you're viewed as a slower guy."
And so on, and so on…
"It was funny to make guys uncomfortable or ask them questions that people wouldn't normally ask them," Garcia says. "I loved interviewing Deuce. Deuce is one of my best friends I've made in my life. Talking with him, he was like, 'Dude, are you really saying this on camera?' I enjoyed interviewing the guys."
It all culminated in Garcia sharing a couch with K-State head basketball coach Jerome Tang on the K-State campus for Tang's show, "Hang with Tang," which also became a social-media sensation. The offseason prompted Garcia to garner some on-campus fame. He hopes people recognize him for being a member of another Big 12 title team in 2023.
"I want to make an impact and help us win games, but there's no better feeling than seeing your buddies lift up a Big 12 Championship trophy," he says. "I don't care about anything except getting back to that moment."
There's a moment when this didn't seem possible. Why? Because basketball was his first love. Garcia grew up the son of Renaldo Garcia, former University of Florida basketball player (1987-91), and head varsity boys basketball coach at Berkeley Prep. He says that he grew up around sports "coming out of the womb." They went to Florida football games. Garcia was 3 years old. He was hooked. His family was all huge Gator fans. He practically lived in The Swamp. Although he starred in football, basketball was his jam.
"I told my dad I wasn't going to play football," Garcia says. "I wanted to play basketball."
Renaldo, who coached his son in high school basketball, convinced his son to truly give football a chance. Good thing. Garcia had 71 catches for 1,342 yards and 11 touchdowns in his career at Berkeley Prep and was named to the 2020 Sports Illustrated All-America preseason watch list while helping the Buccaneers to a 7-2 record and a state runner-up finish.
"He was a great leader for us and just had a tremendous personality in our locker room in a positive way," Ciao says. "He's one of my all-time favorites. What a great young man."
During high school spring football, FBS head coaches and assistant coaches lined the football field. One year, Berkeley Prep had the No. 1 offensive tackle in the nation, Nicholas Petit-Frere, who went onto star at Ohio State and was a third-round selection by the Tennessee Titans in the 2022 NFL Draft. As a high school freshman, a University of Minnesota assistant approached Garcia and said, "Keep playing and you'll play Saturdays anywhere in the country." One day, Garcia and a teammate walked into the football office. Jim Harbaugh sat there and offered his teammate a scholarship. Another day, Garcia received a phone call. It was Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell, who gave Garcia his first scholarship offer.
K-State coaches phoned Garcia during his junior season. The recruiting process became muddled during COVID. Garcia, who had seen former teammates pose with Lamborghinis and post photos of themselves in football gear during official visits, never experienced the on-campus recruiting process due to the pandemic. "It was a face-value relationship with people I'd never known," he says. "No visits. No facilities. None of that. Coach Klieman was someone I knew I could play for."
It wasn't until Garcia arrived for workouts that he stepped foot in Manhattan for the first time. "I had never seen snow," he says.
After playing in three games and preserving his redshirt while fighting homesickness as a true freshman in 2021, he had seven catches for 70 yards and a touchdown while playing in every game last season.
And now he's here, in the flesh, talking about how he's improved his speed during the offseason. Here he is, talking about training with Byron Pringle in Tampa. Here he is, talking about working out with Vaughn. Here he is, talking about gaining pointers from the pros. Howard couldn't be happier.
"RJ has gotten so much more confident in his role," Howard says. "When he was a young kid, he was growing into his body and feeling his way through things, but now he's cemented himself as a starter and is so much more confidence and really is a huge leader in the wide receiver room. Those guys look up to him. On the field, he runs incredible routes and is always where I need him to be. We're always on the same page. He's great. He's awesome."
It's his on-field and locker room personality that K-State teammates truly appreciate.
"He's very intelligent," Savage says.
"He's a sparkplug," center Hayden Gillum says.
Perhaps cornerback Keenan Garber puts it best.
"He's a guy," Garber says, "you want on your team."
After K-State opens the season against SEMO next Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, the Wildcats host Troy and travel to Missouri. However, it's the Wildcats' Big 12 opener against UCF that holds a special spot in Garcia's heart. He'll have the chance to face a pair of close friends and former Berkeley Prep teammates in UCF sophomore wide receiver Xavier Townsend and redshirt freshman linebacker TJ Bullard.
"Not a lot of Berkeley people play each other in college," Garcia says. "Excited to share the field with them. It'll definitely be a rare occurrence for Berkeley for sure."
Here we are, less than two weeks until one of the most highly-anticipated season-opening kickoffs in recent K-State memory, and Garcia is eager to build from his touchdown against No. 3 TCU in the Big 12 title game.
"I knew I could play out there," he says. "It was cool to make an impact in such a big game. Definitely a confidence booster for sure."
There will be a time, and that time is soon, when Garcia and the defending Big 12 champs take the field. And how might that moment be? And what might Garcia, now one of the more famous Wildcats, think about as he jogs onto the field in front of 50,000 screaming fans?
"Just be where your feet are," Garcia says. "I'm really blessed to be in this position. There are millions of kids all across the country who'd kill to be in this position. I'm going to think about all the hard work I've put in to be here, and I know that I deserve to be here. I'm going to enjoy every single second of it."
After an offseason that featured a little off-the-field fame, Garcia plans to let his play on the field whip the Little Apple into a big purple frenzy.
Here we are, less than two weeks until No. 16 Kansas State kicks off one of its most highly-anticipated seasons in recent memory, and here he is in the flesh, RJ Garcia II, a 20-year-old sophomore wide receiver, who during the offseason blew up on K-State social media as the star host of "Cats Talk," his dry wit and mischievous smile accompanying 4-minute segments in which he interviewed Kobe Savage and Will Howard and Deuce Vaughn and Felix Anudike-Uzomah and others, causing them to awkwardly peel back layers, and laugh. Today, there is no laughter. Not after a grueling fall camp and not with the 107 degree temperatures outside and not with K-State preparing for a Big 12 Championship title defense this fall.
Today, Garcia is sporting a black Sugar Bowl long-sleeve t-shirt, a gold rope chain with a No. 3 tight against his neck, and he's wearing black Powercat shorts, white Nike socks and black Gucci slides at the Vanier Family Football Complex. Today, he's pushing off talk about his dry wit, which made him a Manhattan star, and he's embracing his role as a starter, boasting potential as a prominent pass-catching weapon that could make him a standout for the Wildcats.
"Hopefully, I make a lot of plays, catch lot of balls, and score a bunch of touchdowns," he says, "but I'm more focused on winning games."
The games, yeah, the games are what he's about. His K-State coaches and teammates champion his competitive fire. "My family hates playing board games with me," he says. His high school coach, Dominic Ciao back home at Berkeley Prep in Tampa, Florida, says that "RJ's relentless urge to dominate and always be perfect and his desire to strive for greatness in everything he did" stands out the most. K-State head coach Chris Klieman says Garcia was one of the offensive standouts of fall camp.
"Route running, confidence, coming in and out of breaks, catching the ball with authority, getting up field, communicating, leadership, lining up younger kids," Klieman says. "I mean, RJ has really taken on another role from a leadership standpoint, and his play has gotten better and better, too."
It's been eight months since Garcia made his on-field splash, when under the lights at AT&T Stadium, the 6-foot, 176-pounder caught a 25-yard touchdown from Howard to lift the Wildcats to a 21-10 lead over No. 3 TCU in the Big 12 title game, and it's been eight months since Garcia listened to Vaughn, his close friend, predict, "Man, RJ, I think you're going to catch a touchdown in this game," and it's been eight months since Garcia looked up videos of college football championship games, saw the confetti, and manifested in his mind that the Wildcats would be swimming in confetti as well.
"Life is good," Garcia posted on Twitter on December 3 along with a photo of him laying on a field of confetti.
In the midst of all this, during a season in which Garcia showed flashes that he could star on the football field, he let his personality shine through. He gets his seriousness from his dad and his fun side from his mom. Howard cannot look at him without breaking into a grin because that's the kind of guy Garcia is, and every team needs a Garcia.
"He's so fun all the time and it's an infectious personality," Howard says. "Every morning, he gets everybody going. He puts a smile on my face because he's always in a good mood, and he's always going to make you laugh."
After last season, former K-State football director of creative media Alec Handlin approached Garcia about an opportunity. Handlin asked Garcia to interview teammates on camera. Little could anybody predict what was going to come next.
Garcia: "Have you always been small?"
Vaughn: "Yes."
Garcia: "If you had a superpower, what would it be?"
Howard: "Always wanted to fly."
Garcia: "I thought you'd say speed, because you're viewed as a slower guy."
And so on, and so on…
"It was funny to make guys uncomfortable or ask them questions that people wouldn't normally ask them," Garcia says. "I loved interviewing Deuce. Deuce is one of my best friends I've made in my life. Talking with him, he was like, 'Dude, are you really saying this on camera?' I enjoyed interviewing the guys."
It all culminated in Garcia sharing a couch with K-State head basketball coach Jerome Tang on the K-State campus for Tang's show, "Hang with Tang," which also became a social-media sensation. The offseason prompted Garcia to garner some on-campus fame. He hopes people recognize him for being a member of another Big 12 title team in 2023.
"I want to make an impact and help us win games, but there's no better feeling than seeing your buddies lift up a Big 12 Championship trophy," he says. "I don't care about anything except getting back to that moment."
There's a moment when this didn't seem possible. Why? Because basketball was his first love. Garcia grew up the son of Renaldo Garcia, former University of Florida basketball player (1987-91), and head varsity boys basketball coach at Berkeley Prep. He says that he grew up around sports "coming out of the womb." They went to Florida football games. Garcia was 3 years old. He was hooked. His family was all huge Gator fans. He practically lived in The Swamp. Although he starred in football, basketball was his jam.
"I told my dad I wasn't going to play football," Garcia says. "I wanted to play basketball."
Renaldo, who coached his son in high school basketball, convinced his son to truly give football a chance. Good thing. Garcia had 71 catches for 1,342 yards and 11 touchdowns in his career at Berkeley Prep and was named to the 2020 Sports Illustrated All-America preseason watch list while helping the Buccaneers to a 7-2 record and a state runner-up finish.
"He was a great leader for us and just had a tremendous personality in our locker room in a positive way," Ciao says. "He's one of my all-time favorites. What a great young man."
During high school spring football, FBS head coaches and assistant coaches lined the football field. One year, Berkeley Prep had the No. 1 offensive tackle in the nation, Nicholas Petit-Frere, who went onto star at Ohio State and was a third-round selection by the Tennessee Titans in the 2022 NFL Draft. As a high school freshman, a University of Minnesota assistant approached Garcia and said, "Keep playing and you'll play Saturdays anywhere in the country." One day, Garcia and a teammate walked into the football office. Jim Harbaugh sat there and offered his teammate a scholarship. Another day, Garcia received a phone call. It was Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell, who gave Garcia his first scholarship offer.
K-State coaches phoned Garcia during his junior season. The recruiting process became muddled during COVID. Garcia, who had seen former teammates pose with Lamborghinis and post photos of themselves in football gear during official visits, never experienced the on-campus recruiting process due to the pandemic. "It was a face-value relationship with people I'd never known," he says. "No visits. No facilities. None of that. Coach Klieman was someone I knew I could play for."
It wasn't until Garcia arrived for workouts that he stepped foot in Manhattan for the first time. "I had never seen snow," he says.
After playing in three games and preserving his redshirt while fighting homesickness as a true freshman in 2021, he had seven catches for 70 yards and a touchdown while playing in every game last season.
And now he's here, in the flesh, talking about how he's improved his speed during the offseason. Here he is, talking about training with Byron Pringle in Tampa. Here he is, talking about working out with Vaughn. Here he is, talking about gaining pointers from the pros. Howard couldn't be happier.
"RJ has gotten so much more confident in his role," Howard says. "When he was a young kid, he was growing into his body and feeling his way through things, but now he's cemented himself as a starter and is so much more confidence and really is a huge leader in the wide receiver room. Those guys look up to him. On the field, he runs incredible routes and is always where I need him to be. We're always on the same page. He's great. He's awesome."
It's his on-field and locker room personality that K-State teammates truly appreciate.
"He's very intelligent," Savage says.
"He's a sparkplug," center Hayden Gillum says.
Perhaps cornerback Keenan Garber puts it best.
"He's a guy," Garber says, "you want on your team."
After K-State opens the season against SEMO next Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, the Wildcats host Troy and travel to Missouri. However, it's the Wildcats' Big 12 opener against UCF that holds a special spot in Garcia's heart. He'll have the chance to face a pair of close friends and former Berkeley Prep teammates in UCF sophomore wide receiver Xavier Townsend and redshirt freshman linebacker TJ Bullard.
"Not a lot of Berkeley people play each other in college," Garcia says. "Excited to share the field with them. It'll definitely be a rare occurrence for Berkeley for sure."
Here we are, less than two weeks until one of the most highly-anticipated season-opening kickoffs in recent K-State memory, and Garcia is eager to build from his touchdown against No. 3 TCU in the Big 12 title game.
"I knew I could play out there," he says. "It was cool to make an impact in such a big game. Definitely a confidence booster for sure."
There will be a time, and that time is soon, when Garcia and the defending Big 12 champs take the field. And how might that moment be? And what might Garcia, now one of the more famous Wildcats, think about as he jogs onto the field in front of 50,000 screaming fans?
"Just be where your feet are," Garcia says. "I'm really blessed to be in this position. There are millions of kids all across the country who'd kill to be in this position. I'm going to think about all the hard work I've put in to be here, and I know that I deserve to be here. I'm going to enjoy every single second of it."
After an offseason that featured a little off-the-field fame, Garcia plans to let his play on the field whip the Little Apple into a big purple frenzy.
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