Nice little article on Eddie Garcia...

[MrMustang1965]

NFL kickers typically are a nomadic bunch, moving from team to team depending on their winds of fortune, or sometimes just the winds themselves.

Eddie Garcia is perfectly content in the Fox Valley, however. The former Green Bay Packers kicker has lived in Omro for the past 15 years with his wife, Jill, and their two daughters.

“We really enjoy it. It’s a great area,” he said.

Garcia enjoyed his short stint in the NFL, which came after he became Southern Methodist University’s all-time leading scorer among kickers in 1981. He was Green Bay’s 10th-round draft pick in 1982, and came back to the roster in 1983 mostly to handle kickoffs instead of the aging Jan Stenerud.

That year, he kicked a 55-yard field goal in a preseason game against Cleveland.

“The front page in the Green Bay paper the next day had a picture of me setting what was then a Lambeau Field record,” he said.

“It was exciting. The kick would have won the game, but the Browns came down and kicked a field goal of their own, which sort of took the starch out of things.”

After Garcia was released by the Packers in 1984, he gave the NFL a couple more shots with Miami and Tampa Bay.

When that didn’t work out, he went back to his native Texas and got into the defense business with Texas Instruments.

His wife was eager to return to Wisconsin, however, so Garcia checked with Oshkosh Truck Corp., which is one of the area’s top defense contractors.

“I sent them a resume, and they pretty much hired me on the spot, because I had experience in the defense business,” he said.

Garcia is director of government marketing for Oshkosh Truck, working with government agencies and making the connections between product and user.

He has watched the company grow from a multimillion- to a multibillion-dollar business.

His role also means travel throughout the country as well as overseas.

Oshkosh Truck’s facility in Kuwait supports the U.S. military’s activities in the Middle East.

“It was very interesting, and it made us proud to serve our troops,” Garcia said.

http://www.packersnews.com/archives/new ... 3026.shtml

[deleted] Knapinski writes for The Post-Crescent. E-mail him at [email protected]

[Hoofbeat83]

eddie is a great guy. he was a nice classmate and a sure-to-make-it place kicker. i remember him well.