When Raphael Garcia gave up his professional soccer career to pursue a bachelor of law degree at Carleton University, he didn’t know he would be a U Sports Top 8 Academic All-Canadian award recipient.
The second-year student was granted the award on Jan. 24 for his success as a student-athlete—playing for the Carleton Ravens men’s soccer team as a defender and achieving an 11.11 CGPA.
But soccer has always been Garcia’s passion. He previously played in the Canadian Premier League (CPL) for Winnipeg-based club Valour FC. Before that, Garcia climbed up the ranks at MLS club CF Montréal and trained with the first-team.
Garcia said his family was an essential part of his success. As a former soccer player in France, Garcia’s father heavily influenced him to pursue the sport from a young age.
“Coming from a Spanish dad, soccer feels like a religion. It doesn’t feel like a sport,” Garcia said. “When I play, [the game] means more to me than just winning.”
While soccer is a monumental part of Garcia’s life, injuries and the low-paying CPL salary drove Garcia out of the professional league. He said experiencing the hidden side of professional sports—being paid only $15,000 per year during the CPL’s early seasons—persuaded him to pursue an education for more stability.
“You’d think the professional world is all [glory] … but that’s not the case,” Garcia said. “I had a hard time paying rent, I had a hard time paying my phone bill. I don’t want to feel that again.”
So, as an alternative to a career filled with high-risk and low reward, Garcia turned to the other aspect of life that his parents heavily advocated for: a good education.
Guylaine Robichaud, Garcia’s mother, is a retired school teacher who always preached the value of education to her kids and told them to dream big. So, at 14-years-old, when Garcia asked Robichaud to join the CF Montréal academy, she said she felt obligated to grant her son’s wishes.
Garcia said his parents would drive one to two hours from Ottawa to Montreal every weekend to attend practices and games at the academy. While Garcia’s teenage years were very different from the average teenager, his mother never saw his grades decline or his concentration waver. She said his unique experience made him the man he is today.
“He’s a very bright boy … I always knew he could manage [school and playing soccer],” Robichaud said. “He doesn’t even realize how committed he is. For him, it’s just normal.”
Robichaud added she is proud of Garcia’s achievement and his award showed her he is a strong student—something she said she always knew.
But there’s a difference between being an athlete and being a student. To do both well, any individual must allocate large amounts of time to both studying and perfecting their craft.
For student-athletes, a perfect balance is required. Focus too much on sports, and the athlete is exiled from the team for poor academic standing. They’ll suffer the same fate if they excel in academia but perform poorly in their sport.
This is something U Sports athletes struggle with all the time, according to Ravens men’s soccer head coach Kwesi Loney.
“The idea of being a student-athlete is that you are striving to be the best that you can be in the classroom as well as on the field,” Loney said. “You are managing both [worlds] successfully, not putting more weight or value on one over the other.”
Despite being a coach, Loney values education as a top priority. He believes that “simply passing” isn’t good enough for the players on his team. So when Loney sees Garcia studying on the bus to and from games, he believes it sets a good example for the younger members of the team.
“In those [break] moments, [student-athletes] have to try and maximize their time,” Loney said. “I think that’s lost sometimes with student-athletes.”
Garcia understands the lost-time factor Loney is talking about. Despite his productive moments, Garcia said he found himself procrastinating to finish assignments or wasting time scrolling on social media.
His advice to students and student-athletes is to ask yourself why you’re pursuing school, and, once you have the answer, to get the work done.
“In university, you’re going to have to do [academic] things you probably don’t want to do,” Garcia said. “Instead of complaining about it … go ahead and prepare yourself for it and get it done … put that anger towards studying.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
