“I got a lesson!” Chris Seela shouted four words that have become synonymous with Love Island before reading a message to the season 7 men in the villa. According to the lesson, they will play the game of 3 -on -3 basketball.
The group’s enthusiastic response was fast. They were running, jumping and cheering. “Boys Day! Boys Day! Boys Day!” Mantras sparked in his confession. But an islander, Jose “Pepe” Garcia, had mixed feelings.
This was not due to lack of confidence in his basketball skills or because he was intimidated by the captain of the other team, Seela, who stands on 6 -Foot -8. Eventually, Garcia has faced a lot of top athletes as a former professional international basketball player.
An injury – not in the veins – caused his reluctance. Garcia told ESPN that he stepped on a nail in the previous challenge, making it difficult to walk and made significant bleeding. But it was not going to stop him from playing in this game.
Garcia told ESPN last week, “I am lame everywhere.” But I was so, it’s good, I am leaving, I don’t care. This competition came out in me. “
The game gave a few hours away from Fiji Villa to people – and established a second meeting between Garcia and Seala, who played professionally abroad. As Garcia later learned from his father, his first matchup came to high school.
This time, Garcia scored the first points and chose some impressive jumpers, but finally, Team Chris won the battle.
“I think the original game should have been 11 because of my leg,” Garcia said. “And then, of course, as if, I was so, now we are playing at the age of 15, and then I was so, now we are playing at the age of 21. By the time I reached 21, my sock was full of blood, but I was so, ‘Hey, do we like it, 25 or something like that?’
“We just want to push it and push it.” For a few hours, the only thing that matters to Garcia was playing basketball. It all felt familiar.
Garcia doesn’t remember The exact age when he first picked up a basketball, but he remembers when he began to take it seriously: eighth grade. When he joined his first official team, and by high school, he began to push himself – with a little help.
In his new year, he met coach AC, who became an influential person in his life. Their relationship began that Garcia thought that there was a simple proposal: Coach AC asked him to come into a workout, free.
Garcia remembers two things about that three or four -hour session, which he is still “one of the most difficult workouts in my life so far.” One, he was later so tired that he sat completely on the floor. And two, what did coach AC say to him.
“I remember he told me,” Maybe I will not see you next week, but you did well today, “Garcia remembered. “Obviously, I came to know after years that he tells everyone, because it is true that 99% of the people who do that workouts do not come back next week. As a 13 -year -old, 14 -year -old child, it is not the mindset of most children. And, yes, I went back.”
And he kept going back. Los Almetos (CA) At high school up to its senior year, Garcia scored 18.8 points per game and 3.2 assistance.
Coach AC had an experience of coaching talents such as Landry Fields and other players who went abroad for professional career. Bending on his guru, Garcia asked what happened to reach those heights, and learned that he does not need to attend Kentki or Duke, which is a rewarding basketball career.
There were many other divisions I schools to choose from there, which could serve as a step to reach your final goal of playing. He chose a nearby Cal State Fulrton.
“After people like Kyle Allman Junior and Khalil Ahmed, these two horrific hupeners who meet me to play against every single day, which are really only dogs. I mean – they are playing at high levels – they are playing at high levels – going against them every one day, it was liked, ‘Well, this is the best step you can ask anytime.”
Garcia did not take much action in the court, but he stopped with Titans by 2017-19 before he wanted to leave and achieve an agent.
“Due to being born in Spain, I had the opportunity to go and just play in Spain, not for any professional team, no one really called me, such as a specific team. He just said, ‘Hey, we have this. We want you to come to come. We come. We know. We know. We know. We know. [you were born in Spain]We know that you do not count as a spaniard; You count as an American, but still, we want you to play, “he told ESPN.
Garcia took the opportunity and said that after his first experience, he got an offer to play for foreign teams. As Promo game, She played in Spain from 2019-21, an FIBA certified agency. And then from 2021-2022, he went to join Mexico’s Fuerza Regia and Toros Torren-where he took average of 9 points, 1.4 rebounds and shot 35% from the 3-point line. He withdrew his career in Spain in 2023.
He told ESPN that his last season in Spain was “cruel” due to a knee injury from the first year. The plan was to return and play Mexico, but Garcia said that after completing his presiden evaluation, the team owner told him that his Patel was “completely dead” and had the ability to stretch again.
Garcia said, “And I remember my father told me that when I went home, ‘it’s going to end at some point,” Garcia said. “As a child, you don’t think about it. And as a stupid thing I did, as a pro -athlete, I was not thinking about it either.”
He eventually took time to consider his future and eventually decided to call it a career and focus on his next chapter in life as an individual instructor.
Garcia loves very much to play abroad on his time. This not only allowed him to live his dream, but also allowed him to find a new hobby, which he still keeps close to him, playing the guitar. But he admitted that there were challenges coming with lifestyle. From that time there is a change that affects loved ones remembering the holidays remembering to struggle in their dating life.
For years, he spent half his time in Europe or Mexico and the other half at home in Los Angeles, so he eventually dated with the intention of moving forward.
“I will try to date the people of the states, but again, I am living in Spain,” he said. “So, it turned into bus, you are talking to people, and it simply does not go anywhere. So yes, it definitely interferes with all.”
Got it all There was a viral ticket video for Garcia that started paying attention. Especially after another, the reality TV show – including love island – started to reach out. He shared a message received in an old college group chat from Love Island and a friend, Ryan, separated to him separately.
“He says to me, ‘I love Love Island. This is the best show in the horrific world. If you are going to do a reality TV show, you have to do so. You will like it,” Garcia remembered. “It was like a four-one text, just the longest text I had ever done. And I was so, man, you know what? He convinced me to do so.”
There is no stranger to appear to athletes at the Love Island franchise show. Season 7 of Liusa alone had three in Garcia, Seela and TJ Palma, part of Tampa University’s 2024 DII National Championship Basball Team.
Garcia, Seela and other male contestants tied their shared love of basketball throughout the season.
“Every lunch and dinner, there is one ‘I can beat you 1 -on -1,” or’ We three can beat you all three, or we can beat five you five, “he said. “It was just the subject of the way.”
And the will of the contestants was commanded by the makers. After the group basketball game, the vibes remained high. At the show’s final family dinner, Seela also said that playing basketball with people is probably the most fun I ever did. “
Garcia and Iris Kendall eventually finished the dating show in fourth place – however, both are estimated Unfolled each other On Instagram.
Life for Garcia is still changing in summer. He now has 1.4 million followers on Instagram, he got an opportunity to participate in the training camp of Los Angeles Chargers and recently, played in the Big 3 Celebrity Games.
“This, it’s incredible, you know.”
“You know as a child, this is so, I wish I could do it for a living,” Garcia said. “Now I have to go and play in the Big 3 celebrity game, and I meet the chargers to meet and walk and walk out … so blessed that he is able to do all, and thankfully I get to do all this.”
When Big 3 approached him, he asked his management team whether it could happen, and did it.
“I went to meet the ice cube, I met, I met Mark Cuban, and I met all these people,” he said. “I found it to bite it with Ochokinko, who was someone I saw that I was young. I met Disees Bryant and Waka Floka to hang out. It is so, I mean people are seeing that I have grown up, and now I am playing basketball with them only in the same court.”
Garcia said that there is still much with him because he continues to live his new dream. But on Monday, August 25, the Love Island will broadcast the Reunion, representing the high anticipated final chapter of this unique experience (at least for now).
The play and hot discussion is bound, but Garcia was harassed at any possible spoils. One of his words preview? “fun.”
