Ex-South Carolina QB Stephen Garcia Says He Has Stage 4 Colorectal Cancer

He played for the Gamecocks from 2009 to `11.

Stephen Garcia steered South Carolina to its first and only SEC championship berth. | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

Former South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia has been diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer, he announced in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon.

“Wasn’t overly excited to share this news but it is what it is. We have a great team of doctors and staff that’s confident we can beat this! It’s the only option,” Garcia wrote on the social-media platform. “If there’s one lesson to be learned, get checked and don’t be afraid to visit the doctors office when you don’t feel 100%.”

Garcia’s wife, Maria Garcia, wrote on GoFundMe that Stephen’s diagnosis followed “a few days in the ER and a battery of tests.”

“Stephen is beginning chemotherapy today. His medical team is starting him on FOLFIRINOX, which confirms they are taking the most aggressive treatment path available to fight this,” Maria wrote. “Following these initial rounds, he will be meeting with specialized liver and colon surgeons to determine the next steps in his treatment plan.”

The 38-year-old Lutz, Fla., native quarterbacked the Gamecocks from 2008 to `11.

Garcia helped the Steve Spurrier era at South Carolina get off the ground

The Gamecocks hired Spurrier, then-division rival Florida’s winningest coach, before the 2005 season. Spurrier’s early years in the Palmetto State were bumpy but showed promise, with Garcia—then a sophomore best known for colliding with a referee as a freshman—throwing for 17 touchdowns against 10 interceptions in a solid 2009 season. And then 2010 happened.

Beginning the year unranked, South Carolina opened the year 3-0 before stunning the college football world with a 35–21 upset of No. 1 Alabama (Garcia completed 17 of 20 passes for 201 yards and three touchdowns, helping offset a strange safety). The Gamecocks rode that momentum all the way to their first and only SEC championship berth, where they lost 56–17 to a No. 2 Auburn team that went on to win the national championship.

Garcia returned in 2011, but the program dismissed him midway through the season for violating team rules related to alcohol and marijuana. He never caught on in the professional ranks, but he remained adjacent to the South Carolina program, holding football camps and giving interviews from time to time.

The Gamecocks, meanwhile, rode the runway Garcia helped build to some of their best-ever seasons: three straight 11-2 campaigns from `11 to 2013, to be exact. These are the only three years in which South Carolina has ever finished in the AP Top 10.

Current South Carolina coach Shane Beamer sent his well wishes

“I talked to Stephen about an hour ago, actually. He was in great spirits,” Beamer told reporters Wednesday via The (Columbia, S.C.) State.“I told him to attack this thing with the same mindset with which he’s attacked everything, going back to when he was a player here.

“When I called him—you don’t know what to expect. He was in regular Stephen Garcia mode when I talked to him earlier,” Beamer added with a smile.

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