Al Garcia, 1936-2008: 'Just a great guy'

Friends, family, colleagues remember longtime sports broadcaster, referee

Lee Yobbi | The New Mexican

5/3/2008 - 5/4/08

That damn water wasn't going to get him again.

Not like it had so many times before.

Al Garcia lined up his final shot at hole No. 10 on the Pueblo de Cochiti Golf Course and hit his approach over the pond that fronts a sloping, innocent-enough-looking green.

This time the ball landed safely, dry as a bone.

"He would always say, 'I can't deal with water," says Bill Valdez, Garcia's playing partner for the last 20 years. "He hit so many shots in that water on 10 and 18.

"But as a matter of fact, on Monday he got over it."

It was the last time Garcia would play the course he loved. The longtime local sports broadcaster and athletic official died suddenly on Wednesday of a massive heart attack after working in his yard at his Rio Rancho home. He was 72.

Garcia showed no warning signs of illness, and in fact, hardly ever went to a doctor. He didn't need to.

"He had no business dying," said Valdez, who also worked with Garcia at his day job at the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue for 20-plus years. "We were just talking on Monday about how he would turn 73 in June, and how good he felt."

Garcia reflected that goodness from the inside-out. He was always quick with a smile, a story — there were a million — and he exuded enthusiasm for life. He lived it with gusto.

"The thing I loved about Al was when he would call a foul," says Ron Porterfield, who was the athletic director at Santa Fe Indian School for 43 years, and who knew Garcia almost as long.

"Al would wind his arm up real big to call the basket if it counted. He was really animated when he would call."

He was animated about most things.

Garcia and longtime friend and counterpart Rick Gutierrez were collecting money for a Babe Ruth Tournament in the late 1970s when a big mass of a man slid through the lot without paying the $1 admission. Gutierrez says Garcia whistled at the guy to come back and pay. The man told Garcia he didn't have to because his kid played in the tourney. Garcia told the guy that was all the more reason to fork over the buck. The man reluctantly did, and as he drove away, Gutierrez says, "Al said, 'thanks a lot you cheap skate!' "

"I asked him, 'what would you have done if he would have got out of the car?' Al said: 'That's what I've got you for,' " says Gutierrez, chucking at the memory.

Valdez met Garcia when he was 20 years old and Al was several years older. Both were involved in Little League baseball. It wasn't until Valdez came back from the Army that the two really became close. But, as with most people, Garcia hit it off with Valdez almost from the start. They worked and golfed together for two decades.

"He was such an easy guy to get along with," says Valdez. "He always had some sage advice, though some of his views were older."

Like the fact that Garcia was just starting to learn how to use a laptop computer, and he still didn't like seeing basketball players in long shorts.

"He said they might as well be wearing a dress," says Gutierrez.

Gutierrez and Garcia knew each other for 45 years. They coached together, they refereed together, and they called games together. For three decades they did radio broadcasts on a combination of KVSF and KTRC with the positions changing on the AM dial. As refs, they traveled the corners of the state. They called everything from the Special Olympics to YAFL football to the state basketball tournament. Though Gutierrez says his one regret is that they weren't chosen to ref the state tournament together.

And in more than four decades of knowing each other, they got into exactly one argument.

"But boy was it a pretty good one," said Gutierrez. "That's the kind of guy he was. Just a great guy."

Gutierrez recalls a time Garcia officiated a game in Moriarty, and Garcia's partner at the time threw out the wife of a coach. It was cold at the time and the woman had to bundle her kids before leaving the building, Gutierrez recalls.

"Al called the commissioner and told him, 'I'll never call with that jackass again,' " laughs Gutierrez.

Gutierrez said the commissioner told Garcia he would be fined if he didn't show up to the two games he was scheduled to work with the guy.

"Al said he would pay it himself," says Gutierrez.

Garcia was a man of faith and conviction. It was his other great passion outside of sports and being involved with youth programs.

"He would always greet people at our church," says Carmen, Garcia's wife. "He was an usher. It was something he was very proud of."

Garcia graduated from St. Gertrude's in Mora in 1954 after being raised by his grandparents. He met Carmen in September of 1954 when the two were at New Mexico Highlands University. They were eventually married for 51 years. It would have been 52 on June 23. They had two daughters, Doris and Debbie, and three grandsons.

"Man, did he love those girls," says Gutierrez. "And they would buy him $400 to $500 Christmas presents! I said, 'What did you do for that?' "

Later in life, Garcia became a recognized voice — if not the voice of Northern New Mexico sports. His collection of notes is legendary. He is a foremost historian of high school athletics in the area and the state. And most all his notes were handwritten in his distinct, meticulous block lettering. Garcia used libraries along with his own considerable experience to compile his notes, which dated game results back into the early 1900s. Garcia most recently broadcast the 2008 State Basketball Tournament.

"It was amazing," says Garcia's broadcast partner of 20-plus years on four stations, Carl Twibell.

"If there was a blowout and it was getting boring, Al could always fill in space," says Gutierrez.

He always found a way to say something nobody else knew.

Garcia's safe landing at the 10th at Cochiti on Monday started what would be a back-nine 10-over par 46. It went with a front-nine 48.

"It was the best he had played in a while," Valdez says. "He was happy because he didn't get a 7 all day."

Cochiti was Garcia's favorite course and one he worked at as a starter. Valdez is going to make a suggestion about that pond.

He wants it to be officially named The Al Garcia Pond.

It would be a last and lasting memory to accompany a life well-lived.

Contact Lee Yobbi at 986-3041 or lyobbi@sfnewmexican.com.