We were so set to get preachy on Stephen Garcia, the hotshot qb recruit who committed to Steve Spurrier at South Carolina and has now made two appearances in the Fulmer Cup Standings in two weeks. He’s decadent! He’s disrespectful! His air of entitlement and disrespect for the law is abominable, intolerable, and indicative of all that is wrong with our worship of athletes! [/wagging finger indignant indignance]

And then, we saw his mug shot:

Look at him! He’s adorable, isn’t he–like a young baby Jesus, if Jesus were a car-keying, beer-pounding Scott Stapp wannabe. Just a good ole boy! Never meanin’ no harm. For pete’s sake, he’s smiling because trouble just feels good to him, the lovable scamp.

Sure, he earns South Carolina one cheap point in the Fulmer Cup by keying some dorkass professor’s car. But we need rapscallions like Garcia to keep us dreaming. While we walk the painted lines of our hyper-ordered society, he’s out there keying cars, fighting cops in alleys, and reminding us what it really means to live. What you call vandalism?

He calls it a message, man…a message about life, man. You just wish you lived with an ounce of the joy juice he calls his life.