Xavier Garcia '05

By Robert Gillespie

Xavier Garcia '05 is at the starting line of the All-New England Championships 400-meter race. This is all New England track and field, mind you, including Division I athletes. His upbeat training partner, Pat Harner '05, says to him, "Guys out here are being paid to do this. You're out here because you love it."

Love is only half the story. Actually, only a third. Garcia steps to the line in the field events of track and field, too. He's like a three-sport man: runner, hurdler, triple jumper.

"You have to be prepared mentally to go back and forth between events," said Garcia. He did a lot of that preparing in high school in Stoneham, Mass., as the New England intermediate hurdles champion and the Massachusetts decathlon champ--that's 10 events in two days. "Track is eighty percent mind, twenty percent body," he said. "Once I tuned my mind into knowing what I'd do at Colby, I set my goals."

All he did was set three freshman and one school record.

At the NESCAC championship meet he ran legs on the winning 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams, won the triple jump and set the freshman record in the intermediate hurdles with a 55.65 third-place finish, surpassing the old mark of 56.79 set in 1993.

Seeded number two in the Division III Championships triple jump, he won with a leap of 46' 8 1/4", breaking his own freshman record.

He bested his own freshman intermediate hurdles record in the trial heats at the New England Division III Championships with a time of 54.74. That same day he ran the second leg on the 4x100 relay team, whose time of 42.08 cracked the school mark of 42.28 set in 1992.

He holds the school freshman record in the open 400 meters. His 48.73 in the All-New England Championships trial heats, breaking the old mark of 49.31, is .01 second off the school record.

That 400-meter run was his best performance this spring, Garcia says. Positioned on the inside lane he keyed on a runner he'd swapped victories with in high school. "I didn't beat him, but I was happy," he said. In the final he hit 48.96, good for eighth place in the field of Division I juniors and seniors.

He took second in the All-New England triple jump and finished the season with "the fourth-best freshman jump in the country in Division III," said Jim Wescott, men's track and field coach. "To be close to qualifying for nationals in the 400, the intermediate hurdles and the triple jump--he's had a tremendous spring."

Not getting to the national championships was "a huge disappointment, actually," Garcia said. "I was disappointed with myself. That reflects on how track is more mental than physical. I didn't make it indoors, so I had myself already beat. Sometimes all it takes is someone on the side to yell at you and the legs go faster."

Two years ago during Garcia's college search, his high school coach, Wayne Fillback '64, provided packets of information and took him on visits to Mayflower Hill. Garcia says he considered Trinity and the University of Connecticut and received offers to Division I schools but chose Colby instead.

He passed up this spring's ECAC championship meet held on the same day he had final exams. "They went really well. I was overprepared," said Garcia, who made the dean's list this spring but hasn't yet declared a major. That seems in character for somebody who does so many events so well.

Garcia gives all the credit for his improvement in the triple jump to Debbie Aitken, women's team head coach. "Her knowledge is amazing," he said. "She broke down my triple jump technique and started me over. We did it and it paid off. Playing basketball the other day I was able to dunk!" Not a bad leap for a guy six feet tall.

He knows he didn't need a Division I program in track to do well. "You can be Division III and still be the world's greatest. That's how I thought of it. I took the education," he said.