Mr. Adrian Garcia, a math teacher here at the Islands for 3 years, has been pulling on the heart strings of his students since Day 1.
Going to school at UCSB for his bachelor’s degree in math and statistics with a minor in Spanish is something Garcia is very proud of. After college he became a commercial lender/loan officer, and only after taking one year off did he go back to school at Cal Lutheran to become a teacher, which only took him two years. He chose math because he grew up doing construction with his dad and feels like math is relative to real life.
Being a beach kid at heart, in 2012 he got engaged on the beach of Costa Rica to his lovely wife, Elizabeth. He has a wonderful 2-year-old, Isabella, and his wife is 3 months pregnant with their second child. He isn’t sure if he wants to know if he’s going to having a boy or a girl. To him it doesn’t matter; he just wants it to be healthy.
Growing up in Mazatlán for kindergarten “was cool,” he said, but he didn’t enjoy it much because all his family was back in L.A. But the beach was one of the things he enjoyed the most, of course. In high school he was an average student and always just got by, even though school was always a priority to him. He played soccer, football and baseball. However, in college he was in a fraternity, Alpha Kappa, where he was the president; he was also the president of the Latino Business Association at UCSB.
As a soccer coach here at CI he is more than extremely busy but his goals for his team are set pretty high. He wants them to be dedicated and see this season through. He plans to win CIF this year, which he thinks is possible because this year his players have better attitudes and better mentalities. He’s ready to take home the trophy.
His players had nothing but good things to say about him, “He’s a great coach you know? Always pushing us to our limits because he wants us to be the best we can be out on that field.”
Being a teacher isn’t for everyone. You really have to be able to connect with kids on a certain level. Garcia knew that he wanted to be a teacher when he used to tutor “gangsters” with a program at UCSB and he was really able to relate to them and overall really enjoyed it. Garcia is an incredible man and a lot of who he is today has to do with the way he grew up.
“My successes and failures really helped me,” he said.
One of the things Garcia likes to say to his students with a smile that could light up the world is “Life is good.”
The things he likes to do besides coaching soccer has to do with family, his number one priority. He enjoys BBQing because he likes to “live it up” with people and he enjoys just seeing other people happy. He also loves spending time with his “baby girl” Isabella; to him she’s everything.
If you had to describe the best thing about Garcia, a lot of students would agree that it’s his personality but his “real talk” speeches are something all of us look forward to from time to time because it is such a “raw” powerful soliloquy that he makes up right on the spot, and they hold real meaning, they motivate us and give us hope for something more.
He impacts every student he crosses paths with in an extremely positive way and is such a great role model, wanting his kids to grow and be successful individuals overall. The student body has nothing but great things to say about him, which could be why he won teacher of the year his first year at CI, something he’s very humble but proud of. CI just wouldn’t be the same with Mr. Garcia.