If It Looks Like A Rat...

Anytime I see photos of Carmella DeCesare, a few things come to mind. I’ll exclude my personal desires, for the sake of this piece, and touch on the memory of a then 49ers receiver, Terrell Owens, and his questioning of the sexual preference of quarterback Jeff Garcia. To put it not so nicely, T.O called Jeff gay.

A Quarterback/Receiver feud is neither new nor uncommon, but T.O took it to another level in his Playboy Magazine interview, when he made references to Garcia’s lifestyle (never seeing him with girls) and the way he carried himself. To quote Owens’ exact words, “Like my boy tells me: if it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, by golly, it’s a rat.”

Of course, there was a quick fallout to the statements, and one day later, Owens has clean up duty and says he didn’t know if Garcia was gay or not. Although his “misinterpretation” claim brought his saga to an end, it only marked the beginning for Jeff Garcia. Gay and Lesbian groups quickly came to Garcia’s defense and made him their poster boy, to which he wasn’t happy. He spent months defending his sexuality, and those groups spent months hammering away at T.O’s homophobic claim of keeping a distance from gay players, and plastering Garcia’s face as the victim.

The quarterback and receiver pair recently hooked up for another touchdown in last month’s Pro Bowl. But this time it wasn’t the single Jeff Garcia, who is never seen with girls, but the newlywed Garcia, who is married to Carmella DeCesare. Garcia married the former wrestler turned playmate last year, and anyone that’s seen her umm…”spread” in Playboy, knows she’s 100% woman. Unless this is one of those marriages of convenience, I would say Garcia has more than cleared his name. And if it is a marriage of convenience, I could only wish things could be as convenient for myself.

Since the marriage, I don’t believe the 2004 war of words between old 49ers has been revisited. It’s mostly all but forgotten, until I come across one of her photographs (or maybe 3 or 4). Who knows what Jeff’s bride would say about those old accusations, but the teary eyed Carmella would probably tune in with something like this:

“Y’all leave Jeff Garcia alone. That’s my soul mate. That’s my quarterback".