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[Jammin Jaguar]

Basically, I watched an interview with David and found out some things about him that I never knew, so I thought it'd be good if you could all have a look at the life of David Garrard and find out what type of man he really is. There's a lot more to him that just a 'One-Year Wonder QB'...

David Douglas Garrard (born February 14, 1978 in East Orange, New Jersey) is an American football quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Jaguars in the fourth round of the 2002 NFL Draft. He played college football at East Carolina.

David Garrard grew up in Durham, North Carolina, where he attended Southern High School. Garrard was 14 years old when his mother died from breast cancer. When Garrard began his NFL career, he created The David Garrard Foundation to promote breast cancer awareness and research.

Doctors diagnosed Garrard with Crohn's disease in 2004. Despite undergoing surgery in June 2004 to remove a nearly 12-inch portion of his intestines, Garrard played during the 2004 NFL season.

Garrard's wife, Mary, gave birth to the couple's first child, a son, Justin Thomas Garrard, on September 17, 2007.

Garrard was named an All-America choice by Prep Stars and rated the best quarterback in North Carolina while playing for Southern High in Durham. Veteran high school coaches in North Carolina said Garrard possessed one of the strongest arms they had ever seen and compared Garrard to former NFL quarterback Roman Gabriel

Garrard took over as the starting quarterback for the East Carolina Pirates midway through the 1998 season as a red-shirt freshman. Although physically larger than most quarterbacks at more than 240 pounds, Garrard displayed exceptional mobility. Former East Carolina head football coach Steve Logan compared the experience of tackling Garrard to "getting hit by a beer truck."Garrard also proved durable, starting every game for the Pirates in the 1999, 2000, and 2001 seasons.

In Garrard's sophomore season, he led the Pirates to a 9-3 record with victories over the West Virginia Mountaineers, South Carolina Gamecocks, Miami Hurricanes, and North Carolina State Wolfpack. In the fourth game of the season against Miami, East Carolina came back from a 20-3 deficit to defeat the 13th-ranked Miami Hurricanes, 27-23. Garrard threw a 27-yard touchdown pass to Keith Stokes for the go-ahead score in the final minutes of the game. ECU was unable to play the scheduled home game at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium on its campus in Greenville, NC, because Hurricane Floyd had ravaged the eastern part of the state the prior week. The hurricane also prevented the Pirates from returning to Greenville following a road victory against South Carolina, leaving ECU's football team stranded in Columbia, SC. East Carolina moved the game against Miami to Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh. The victory propelled ECU into the Associated Press college football poll's top 25. The Pirates spent eleven weeks ranked in the AP poll, climbed to as high as 16th in the poll, and finished the regular season ranked 20th. East Carolina dropped out of the top 25 to 27th in the voting after losing 28-14 in the Mobile Alabama Bowl to Texas Christian University and the Horned Frogs' star running back, LaDainian Tomlinson.

ECU finished 8-4 in Garrard's junior season. Garrard capped the season by throwing an unbelievable touchdown and rushing for another acrobatic TD in a 40-27 victory against Texas Tech in the Galleryfurniture.com Bowl. Garrard's senior season began with high expectations but ended in disappointment. Although East Carolina averaged more than 35 points per game in 2001, the Pirates finished the season with a 6-6 record.

Ironically, the final game of Garrard's college career pitted him against Marshall University and its starting quarterback, Byron Leftwich, in the 2001 GMAC Bowl. Garrard and Leftwich would eventually be teammates with the Jacksonville Jaguars and compete for the team's starting quarterback position. In the highest-scoring bowl game in college football history, Leftwich brought Marshall back from a thirty-point deficit to defeat Garrard's East Carolina Pirates 64-61 in double-overtime .

Garrard broke 28 school passing and offensive records at East Carolina and joined a select few quarterbacks who achieved more than 9000 passing yards and 1000 rushing yards in their collegiate careers.

Garrard went on to graduate from East Carolina University in 2001 with a degree in Sports Management. He was also inducted into the Society of the Seven secret society his senior year, making him the first black member in the society's history.


Garrard was drafted as the apparent successor to starting quarterback Mark Brunell. However, following the 2002 season, the Jaguars fired then head coach Tom Coughlin, and new head coach Jack Del Rio drafted Byron Leftwich with the seventh overall pick in the 2003 NFL Draft. Leftwich replaced an injured Mark Brunell as the starting quarterback during the 2003 season and Garrard continued to serve as the team's backup quarterback.

Garrard started for the Jaguars' when Leftwich was injured during Week 9 of the 2004 National Football League season with a sprained left knee. After the 2004 season, Garrard opted to stay with the Jaguars as a back-up instead of pursuing a chance at starting for another team.

Garrard also started 5 games of the 2005 season when Leftwich went down with an injury in week 11. With Garrard as starting quarterback, the Jaguars finished the regular season by going 4-1 and made the playoffs, with the only loss coming at the hands of the Indianapolis Colts. Leftwich then returned as the Jaguars starter for the wildcard playoff game, but was intercepted for a touchdown and proved ineffective in a 28-3 loss to the New England Patriots.

In 2006, Del Rio named Garrard the starter in Week 8 and attributed the change to Leftwich's chronic injury problems, but Leftwich claimed he was healthy enough to continue serving as the team's starter. Garrard was inconsistent and went 5-5 to finish the season as the Jaguars missed the playoffs. In November 2006, Garrard was intercepted four times in a 13-10 loss at home against the Houston Texans.

In February 2007, Del Rio attempted to avoid a quarterback controversy by naming Leftwich the team's unconditional starting quarterback. However, Garrard outplayed Leftwich in the 2007 preseason, throwing for 456 yards, one passing touchdown and another rushing touchdown. Del Rio said Garrard gave the Jaguars a better chance to win than Leftwich[19] and announced Garrard would be the starting quarterback of the Jacksonville Jaguars on August 31, 2007. The Jaguars released Leftwich the next day. Garrard led the Jags to a 11-5 record and threw for 18 TDs and 2,509 yds opposed to only 3 interceptions, which gave him a quarterback rating of 102.2.

On January 5, 2008, In the AFC Wild Card Game, David led his team to a 31-29 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Down 29-28 with 2:36 to go, he led his team in a field goal-scoring drive highlighted by a 32-yard QB run on 4th and 2 that eventually set up the game winning field goal for the Jaguars.

On January 12, 2008, In the AFC Divisional Playoff Game, David threw for 278 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception against the unbeaten New England Patriots. However, the Patriots won the game, 31-20.

On April 7, 2008 it was announced that the Jaguars and Garrard had agreed to a contract extension, worth $60 million over 7 years.

Source: Wikipedia

[JAUK32]

David has ben great i would have never thought he would lead us to playoff victory after seeing that game agaisnt the titans two years ago

[Jammin Jaguar]

What I found most interesting was about his background, his injury in 2004 and the death of his Mother when he was 14. Very saddening but shows you what a good guy he really is. He is a true role model and you'll never see him DUI or smoking marajuana I bet.

[Inclulbus]

Originally Posted by JAUK32

David has ben great i would have never thought he would lead us to playoff victories after seeing that game agaisnt the titans two years ago

minus the ies, and just add a Y. shouldn't be plural.

[nastynate184]

he'll get more then one before his career is done and they can put the ies on victory. and right now he has more playoff wins then romo

[diehardfinsfan54]

I would have waited before you signed him to a top 5 qb contract after all he wasn't spactacular I know he only threw 3 interceptions but only 18TDs. Also he equaled his season total of interceptions in 2 playoff games. I don't think he will ever be great but he will be solid for the next few years. I think the Jaguars got a little to anxious with the amount they gave to him. I hope it works out though.

[86WARD]

I saw an interview with he and his wife last season. He seems like a good dude.

[The Mullet]

Originally Posted by diehardfinsfan54

I would have waited before you signed him to a top 5 qb contract after all he wasn't spactacular I know he only threw 3 interceptions but only 18TDs. Also he equaled his season total of interceptions in 2 playoff games. I don't think he will ever be great but he will be solid for the next few years. I think the Jaguars got a little to anxious with the amount they gave to him. I hope it works out though.

He also has one of the worst recieving corps in the league. I agree it was a risk, but it shows the organization is willing to reward hard work, and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite players in the league

[JAUK32]

Originally Posted by The Mullet

He also has one of the worst recieving corps in the league. I agree it was a risk, but it shows the organization is willing to reward hard work, and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite players in the league

Very true david is a hard worker, hopefully reggie will continue to improve and jerry porter can provide some decent production, also marcedes lewis will become more of a weapon for david

[Jammin Jaguar]

NOW COMES THE HARD PART

David Garrard played his way into the elite-QB club last season. But can the NFL's newest $60 million man make Jacksonville care about the Jags?

by Allison Glock

Mark Heithoff


[For more on the Jags, click here]
If you were to visit David Garrard at his Jacksonville home, located in a freshly minted, gated neighborhood blocks from a fancy mall and P.F. Chang's, you'd likely find him relaxing on his leather sectional in front of the TV, watching the Food Network, his considerable frame wedged between a pile of unfolded baby clothes and his overwrought toy dog, Jax.
You might think to yourself that he seems happy, that his hands could palm a frozen turkey and that most NFL quarterbacks don't spend their downtime watching Rachael Ray. But you wouldn't think, not even when Garrard grins and stands to greet you, unfolding his 6'1", 245-pound body like a Transformer, that this is the man who took Jacksonville from overriding apathy to something approaching Jaguarmania last season. Or that he just pocketed a seven-year contract worth $60 million (about $20 million guaranteed), making him the highest-paid Jag ever.
"Romo money," the 30-year-old jokes. "Almost."
He seems too anonymous for that. For the first five years of his career, Garrard was solid but not a star. He was too friendly. Church-friendly. He lacked swagger. And visibility. He had no overripe pop stars cheering for him. He was a hardworking guy. Fine qualities, but hardly the stuff of legend.
Nor was he even a starter. Until last season, Garrard had been a bridesmaid in Jacksonville. Not since his college days, at East Carolina, had he been a No. 1 QB. Then, nine days before last season's opener, Jack Del Rio cut incumbent Byron Leftwich and promoted Garrard to the top job amid much speculation that the head coach had lost his mind. "I think a lot of people were bitter at me for the decision," Del Rio said recently.
"Jack took a chance on him," says Garrard's wife, Mary, sitting next to her husband on the couch. She pauses, purses her lips. "It would have been really hard for me to hitch my cart to a guy who ended the season like Dave did in 2006."
At this Garrard flinches.

HOW HARSH IS LIFE AS AN NFL QB? EVEN GARRARD'S WIFE WAS SHOCKED WHEN HE GOT THE TOP JOB LAST YEAR: "IT WOULD HAVE BEEN HARD FOR ME TO HITCH MY CART TO A GUY WHO ENDED THE SEASON LIKE DAVE DID IN 2006."

He remembers all too well replacing an injured Leftwich in October 2006, then leading the Jags to five victories in his first seven starts (including a win over the Colts). But he also remembers dropping the last three games that year, courtesy of more turnovers than you'll find in a French bakery. His lowest moment came in the season finale, against the Chiefs. "The game was getting away from me, and Jack pulled me out," he says. "I'd never been pulled from a game in my life. Games had never been decided on my failures."
The Jags missed the playoffs, and Garrard decided in the off-season that, given a second chance, he would not fail. He trained and he prepped and he buried his anxieties and he did all of this with no guarantee of unseating Leftwich in 2007. "If I had listened to my agent, I probably would've left and gone somewhere else," he says. "But I had a feeling."
Garrard believes in God. And God told him to stay put. Soon enough, stuff started to work in his favor. First, Del Rio handed him the job. Then, with Leftwich gone and Garrard behind center, the Jags went on to score the most points per game in team history (25.7 ppg) and make the playoffs. Then came the play of Garrard's career. It happened during the last two minutes of a snowy wild-card game at Pittsburgh, with the Jags down by one. On fourth and two from Pittsburgh's 43-yard line, Garrard dropped back to pass, saw a hole and bolted through, carrying for 32 yards to set up the game-winning field goal. It was a breathtaking, how-ya-like-me-now? run. "That play was a defining moment," Garrard says. "I'd had a few turnovers, and I needed to step up. That play changed the way people saw me. It changed the way I saw myself." Garrard adds that when he called Mary after the game, she just kept screaming into the phone, "Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!"
This is not to say that Garrard suddenly views himself as The Man, although he is wise enough to know that "when you give somebody that much money, he'd better be something."
"Dave is different from other quarterbacks," says Jags tight end George Wrighster, who roomed with Garrard on the road last season. "He doesn't crave attention. He wants players to get their recognition from winning, not from showboating."
That means no dogfighting, no celebutard girlfriends, no hot tub photos on the Internet. "You see too many players who are in your face," says center Brad Meester. "David is someone you actually want to spend time with."
It should be noted that, 13 years after the Jaguars' debut, Jacksonville has yet to fully embrace its teamor be embraced as a pro sports town. Although the franchise fared exceptionally well in The Magazine's most recent Ultimate Standings (available at espnthemag.com), a Harris Poll taken last year, before the team's playoff run, ranked the Jaguars the least popular franchise in the NFL. Home games have routinely been blacked out due to low attendancethey played to a league-worst 88.5% capacity in 2007and requests for tickets have increased a modest 10% on the heels of their playoff run. The indifference has run so deep that, in an age when people sell ads on their butt cheeks, owner Wayne Weaver has been unable to secure a stadium sponsor. For now, the Jags plays at Jacksonville Municipal.
Adding insult to insult is the fact that Jacksonville is football-mad. Nearly every car sports a Gators sticker or an FSU flag or a Dawgs license plate or a stuffed "We Miami!" dolphin waving from the backseat. People in Jacksonville talk about football the way people in Vegas talk about dry heat. They just don't talk much about the Jags. "This isn't like Green Bay or Pittsburgh," says Mary. "Nobody grew up loving the Jaguars."

IN AN AGE WHEN PEOPLE SELL ADS ON THEIR BUTT CHEEKS, THE JAGS HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO GET A STADIUM SPONSOR. FOR NOW, THEY PLAY AT JACKSONVILLE MUNICIPAL.

This does not worry Garrard. "Nothing is ever going to bring my spirit down," he says. "I'm always going to be upbeat." He believes he was predestined to be in the exact position he's in now. Garrard says football is nothing less than "a calling." He first watched a game when he was 6 or so, living in East Orange, N.J., when his parents took him to see his older brother, Anthony, play: "I can remember the smell of the grass, all the kids in their uniforms running around. And I remember thinking to myself, This is what I want to do when I grow up."
His clarity of purpose held fast year after year. Even as Garrard excelled at other sports, even through his parents' divorce when he was 7, even as his father evaporated from the picture and even after his mother, Shirley Ann, died from breast cancer when Garrard was a high school freshman. "She taught me to never let anything keep me down," he says. "My mother always had a smile on her face, even in the end. And I'm the same way now."
"Dave smiles when he calls plays," affirms running back Fred Taylor. "I've never seen him upset."
Four years ago he had every reason to be. Garrard was found to have Crohn's disease in March 2004, a chronic digestive disorder exacerbated by stress. He had surgery to remove 12 inches of his intestines. He lost 35 pounds from his 245-pound playing weight. Going into training camp that year, doctors told him to restadvice he ignored.
"I wanted to do whatever it took to get back on the field," he says. "So I started eating and training."
Mark Heithoff
Garrard, wife Mary and son Justin have plenty of reasons to grin.


Before long he was back at his playing weight, and he's had no flare-ups. He spends three and a half hours every other month taking his IV meds, gets what he calls a "wonderful" colonoscopy every year and compartmentalizes the pressure of being an NFL quarterback. "I don't give it power over my life," he says of his illness. "No one knew if I'd make it back. But I did. I knew."
His face falls still for a moment. He is quiet. His hands idle in his lap. "When my mother passed away, my older brother basically put me and my sister through high school and college," he says, exhaling slowly. "Social services tried to split us up, but Anthony did not want that to happen. He was 26, and he put his life on hold to raise us. He had to grow up so fast. I think about that a lot. I don't intend to waste the life he gave me."
So it's no surprise that Garrard feels little pressure to turn Jacksonville into a Jags town"I think the fans are ready to latch onto a good team," he says, and that a $6.82 million-per-year raise (over his previous three-year, $5.25 mil deal) doesn't scare him. To him, "it's just football."
Dude, it's a $6.82 million-a-year raise.
Garrard pauses, cocks his head. "Trust me," he says, "I don't take football for granted. I work my butt off. But it's still football. The Iraq war is serious. Cancer is serious. Guys get so consumed with football, they miss out on so many things in life."
He shakes his head.
"I don't want to be one of those guys."
He's already spent some of the money. He and Mary bought a new house, in Del Rio's hood. He took a trip to the Masters. He purchased a 41-foot boat he dubbed The Hail Mary! "The little l is a fishing hook," he says proudly, then smiles. "Life is different now. Everything is a little more grand."
The day after he signed his new contract, Garrard got a phone call. It was an old friend, someone he says he hadn't talked to in years, asking for cash. Since then, the calls have kept coming. "It's tough to say you can't do it," he says with a sigh. "I told myself if I ever made it big, I would stay the same approachable person. Money shouldn't change you."
But it does change expectations, and not just from long lost friends. The Jags look to have one of the most difficult schedules in the NFL in 2008. And the AFC South is the toughest division in football. After throwing for 18 touchdowns and only three picks in 2007, Garrard knows all eyes will be on him, waiting to see if he's worth all that money. "David has always had that confidence that if he just worked hard, his turn would come," says Weaver, the Jags' owner. "And today is his turn."
"I'm just going to keep doing what the coaches ask me to," Garrard says of his 2008 plan. "I'm not going to try to be Mr. Magic."
Don't you want to be a star?
There is a long pause. Then the familiar chuckle.
"I want to be up there with the Tom Bradys, the Peyton Mannings. Those guys are just leagues away, it seems. But I believe I can get there. My way."
And for those folks who crave pyrotechnics and drama, who need the theatrics of a diva before they'll leave their couch and hoist a foam finger, Garrard acknowledges he has little to offer. "Sacrifice makes a good player," he says. "Little things when no one's around. Extra field time. Not hanging out at night."
But sacrifice is dull.
"Yup."
He sighs.
"Thinking back on last year," he says, "I was just playing football. Now it's like everywhere I go, people stop me. It doesn't matter where I am, they pretty much know me. I definitely feel like a celebrity. But I don't act like one."
Garrard smiles.
"It's all cool. Until they start booing me on the streets."

Source: ESPN.com