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Texas Tech football's Gino Garcia balances pair of career ambitions
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- Texas Tech football's Gino Garcia balances pair of career ambitions
For Texas Tech football players and staff, watching the Jones AT&T Stadium south end zone building and the Dustin R. Womble Football Center come together has been a bonus over the past year.
Tech's $242 million football facilities project has held special interest for Red Raiders kicker Gino Garcia .
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The sixth-year senior from Richardson Pearce began working in construction around age 15 and started his own roofing business in August 2021. His brother Mike, 3 1/2 years older, came along a year later, and they've added general construction and site work.
"We have three other guys working for us," Garcia said. "My brother does the labor, and I'm more of the sales guy, going to meet the clients and selling the job."
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At whatever point Garcia's sports career ends, he'll likely be ready for life after football, having already laid the groundwork. That might be a while, though. At the moment, the football part's going great. Garcia's made 15 of 16 field goals this year, and on Tuesday he was one of 20 semifinalists named for the Lou Groza Award that's presented annually to the top kicker in college football.
"I called my parents as soon as I found out," Garcia said. "I've been kind of looking forward to this the last couple of weeks, just because I knew it was going to come out here soon. It's a blessing. I'm just trying to take it one kick at a time and finish out the year strong."
In three seasons at Houston Baptist (now Houston Christian) and three at Tech, Garcia's made 63 of 85 field goals. He's on a 28-for-31 hot streak dating to last season.
Texas Tech senior Gino Garcia (99) is one of 20 semifinalists announced this week for the Lou Groza Award, which is presented annually to the country's top college kicker. Garcia has made 15 of 16 field goals this season and 28 of his last 31 dating to last year.
Gino Garcia gets back on track
Garcia handled all placement kicks for the Red Raiders in 2023, then struggled with a mechanical adjustment during spring practice. At the same time, kickoffs specialist Reese Burkhardt emerged to provide some real competition, and special teams coordinator Kenny Perry proved it was more than an idle threat.
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For most games this season, Garcia got the Red Raiders' first field-goal attempt, then alternated with Burkhardt. Combined, they made Tech's first 15 field goals before Burkhardt missed at TCU.
"It was very hard in the beginning of the year," Garcia said, "just because I didn't have the best spring. I know this world is full of competition and I knew Reese wanted my job. The good thing is me and Reese are very close friends. We golf all the time. We hang out all the time."
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Garcia's personal streak of made field goals was 16 in a row, a school record, before he missed his last attempt in the Red Raiders' most recent game, a 41-27 home loss to Colorado.
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"Even when we were switching," Perry said, "he hit a ton of, a bunch of big kicks. The kid's worked hard. He was in a battle last spring and this summer, so it would have been very easy to tuck tail and not want to compete, and he was just the opposite, so I'm proud of him."
Texas Tech kicker Gino Garcia made 32 of 46 field goals in three seasons at Houston Baptist (now Houston Christian) and has made 31 of 39 attempts in three years with the Red Raiders.
NFL opportunity likely awaits Texas Tech football kicker Gino Garcia
Make no mistake, Garcia still has his sights set on taking his shot in the NFL. When the 2024 season ends, though, he plans to make a social-media push for GNG Construction. During football season, Garcia said his brother back in the Metroplex is overseeing their business.
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"He has a family back in Dallas," Garcia said, "and he was working with my dad before, an electrician. I told him to come along, so it's worked. I told him it's both of our company."
The plan began to take off during down time from the COVID pandemic. Being sent back home meant idle time, and Garcia said his father was never one to indulge much lounging around.
"Over winter break, summer break, whenever we didn't have school," Garcia said, "I would go work with him, because he didn't like us just staying home, not doing anything. He showed me a bunch. All his friends are construction people. ... We do construction all the time. I told my brother to come along, so he did and it's been going pretty well."
Just as kickers have to fine tune their mechanics, Garcia also tweaked his business model early on. Watching construction crews' day-to-day progress on Jones AT&T Stadium keeps the idea fresh.
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"I started out with a roofing company," Garcia said, "and it's a tough business to be in just because there's a lot of competition. I brought my brother along in 2022, and we added concrete to that. It's a blessing because I get to meet a lot of people around here (at Texas Tech) that work around the facility and coach (Joey) McGuire introduced me to some people that are in the construction world as well."
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This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football's Gino Garcia balances pair of career ambitions
