Coach’s journey goes from walk-on, to hero, to UNLV grad assistant

It happened early that morning, the instant when pauses in the firing of certain neurons help the brain prioritize different stimuli, happened to Cristian Garcia as he tried to decide whether the act was consensual or rape.

Whether the look on her face was approval or terror.

Whether to step in or move on.

Those unexpected cues from our environment that freeze specific parts of the subconscious are often an essential part of survival, and yet in this manner led Garcia to do what others in and around that alley at 2:20 a.m. in the

summer of 2016 wouldn’t.

Which was to save an incapacitated 19-year-old from attempted sexual assault while others watched and videotaped the incident.

Save her from a man who, according to lawyers, had attacked other women.

“I had taken out the trash at work and saw them by a dumpster and turned away,” he said. “But then my mind told me it couldn’t possibly be consensual. Not with her facial expressions. I just knew something was wrong. So then I turned back.”

How he reached his current position, a first-year graduate assistant football coach at UNLV, is defined by a series of those pauses, along with a whole lot of work and faith and defying of odds.

It happened that afternoon, the instant when pauses in the firing of certain neurons help the brain prioritize different stimuli, happened to Garcia when, as a linebacker for the Florida Gators, he made his Division I debut against Michigan in the 2016 Citrus Bowl.

He ran onto the field and, for a heartbeat, hesitated. He looked at the Michigan student section. At the Florida student section. At all the maize and blue across the line of scrimmage.

Time ceased. Cadence is connected to pulse. It can take us outside ourselves. In that blink, Garcia understood his journey — playing for two Division II schools before transferring to Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, landing a position with the Florida video staff, walking on with the Gators in 2015 — had finally delivered him to the place he so passionately pursued.

“There were a lot of those dog days, where you don’t really know what’s going to happen,” Garcia said. “The future is so uncertain. But that end goal, that dream you have, keeps pushing you.”

The role of a graduate assistant varies depending on the size and stature of a program — how a coach assembles his staff and manages his budget, how duties such as preparing film and working with the scout team are dispersed — and Garcia arrived to UNLV alongside Tim Skipper, the former Gators assistant and now defensive coordinator for the Rebels.

Time passed. The pulse quickened. It can take us inside ourselves. Garcia followed his stint on the scout team and then Citrus Bowl moment with earning a scholarship at Florida in 2017, an honor roll student from Miami who had earlier battled depression over the thought of football being over, whose mother raised him after his father was sent to prison, who now dreams of being a Hispanic head coach in college like the man for whom he works at UNLV.

“Cristian is a wonderful kid,” Rebels coach Tony Sanchez said. “To go through his journey and walk on and end up playing at an SEC school tells you a lot about the guy. And then when you think about the decision he made off the field, shows you what a strong man of character he is. He’s a guy we want around our players, a guy that makes us a better program.”

Moral compass

He stopped the attempted sexual assault that early summer morning of 2016 by pushing the man off the teenage girl, by doing what others around wouldn’t. There was a deposition, along with statements from lawyers that it wasn’t the first time this particular individual attacked a woman.

There was an arrest but no trial. Garcia heard there was jail time.

There was an appearance on “Good Morning America” and later being honored at then-Vice President Joe Biden’s home with an inaugural “It’s On Us” Courage Award.

Garcia pauses remembering it all now, maybe for the firing of certain neurons to help the brain prioritize different stimuli.

“I think we all have a moral compass,” he said. “I grew up being taught to do what’s right. If you don’t do something in that instant, you’re just as guilty as the person committing the act. At the end of the day, we’re all human beings who have a duty to help others.

“I’m very grateful for this opportunity (at UNLV). Men like Coach Sanchez and (Oregon coach) Mario Cristobal are my heroes. I hope as a Hispanic to one day be doing what they are as head coaches. I would love one day to be the head coach at Florida.

“That would really be coming full circle.”

It would be, for Cristian Garcia, a pause for the ages.

Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.