North Carolina State University Athletics
Program Spotlight: Garland Heath
11/7/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Raleigh, N.C. - You don’t have to spend much time with Wolfpack senior roverback Garland Heath to know that he’s proud of his hometown. He comes to the office for this interview wearing a cap with the “561” area code embroidered boldly on the front and the words “Muck City” on the back. And the only place around campus where he is addressed by his given name is probably when roll is called in class.
His friends and teammates all call him some variation of the nickname of the area he hails from. Some call him “Muck Sauce.” Others go for “Muck City.” Most just simply settle for “Muck.”
The nickname is appropriate for a young man who considers himself a product of the environment he grew up in - an environment that seems custom made for a boy who dreams of being a football player one day.
If you google “Muck City,” you get a nice description of Heath’s actual hometown, Belle Glade, Florida:
“Belle Glade (and the surrounding area) is sometimes referred to as ‘Muck City’ due to the large quantity of muck (soil), in which sugarcane grows, found in the area. Belle Glade is home to Glades Central Community High School, which is consistently ranked among the top high school football teams in the state of Florida and the United States. Glades Central High School also has the largest number of football players currently in the NFL than any high School in Florida. The football game against rival team Pahokee High School, “Blue Devils” is one of the largest high school rivalry games in the country, drawing almost 8,000 spectators each year.” - Wikipedia.org
Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay - the towns that make up the area known as “Muck City” - sit on the southeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee in Palm Beach County, about an hour and half northwest of Miami. Heath was born in Glades General Hospital in Belle Glade and lived there his entire life until coming to NC State.
“It’s kinda different,” he says in a deep, South Florida accent. “We didn’t have malls and movies and stuff like everybody has. You’ve gotta drive 45 miles to go to Palm Beach to go to the movies. We just had each other. The guys from Miami joke and say that we chase rabbits and stuff.”
Heath concedes that the area could be considered the country, but NOT if country is used as a derogatory term. Instead, being raised in an area that WASN’T the city gave him a head start on the sport that could end up being his livelihood.
“We played football basically all day growing up,” he says. “We played in any little field that we saw or we would walk over town and play against other people - people from the trailer park, from the other neighborhoods. It didn’t matter. We would talk about it in school and then come the weekend, we would get out there and play ‘til the sun went down.”
Football, “Muck City” style, didn’t boast some of the limitations of Pop Warner or the Rec Leagues. “There were no limits,” he says. “You could be as old as you wanted or as young as you wanted. As big or as little. Sometimes we’d play seven, sometimes eight. We would walk or drive or ride bikes to get there. Everybody knew each other and we would just play football and talk trash. It was fun.”
In elementary school, Heath began playing organized flag football in addition to his weekend games, seeing action at quarterback, receiver and safety. “I was real young - the youngest out there,” he recalls. “They just put me out there and let me run around. But in the fifth grade, that’s when I knew I was really going to be something. I got MVP of the league for 10-12 year olds when I was 10.”
In sixth grade, Heath began to play tackle football. “They had tryouts and a little draft. I played for the Bears at running back and defensive end. I didn’t like defensive end because you never got to see what’s going on. I liked running back though because they gave me the ball every now and then.”
Another league pitted the different housing complexes against each other, so Heath played quarterback and safety for the Pond Glades squad. “I was pretty much in every type of football league I could be in,” he laughs. “I knew I was ahead of my time, because I would get picked in front of the older guys.”
Heath played on a team that included Santonio Holmes (Ohio State), John Miller (South Florida) and Al Royal (Purdue). “There were all these guys that you played against and then by the time you got to high school, you were on the same team. You already knew each other and they were your friends.”
In “Muck City,” where football is as much a part of the culture as alligators, Heath isn’t really sure why football because the pastime of choice.” “I guess because you could play it year round there,” he says. “And I think the trash talking is what made you want to play.”
So it stands to reason that the environment produced a great deal of quality footbal players - having college coaches at his practices was a commonplace occurance. “I guess it’s just because there is a lot of competing when you’re little. We didn’t watch football because we were out there playing it. We couldn’t watch college games or NFL games because we would spend the whole weekend playing.”
But it isn’t the football that makes Garland Heath love his birthplace. “It’s the people,” he states matter-of-factly. “Everybody knows you or they know somebody in your family. They won’t let you get in trouble - they look after you. They want to make sure you’re alright.”
Heath has learned the significance of that sense of community in the last two years. In December of 2004, the year that the Wolfpack did not qualify for a bowl game, he went home for the holidays. His mother, Margaret, had been in and out of the hospital for a while, but Heath was shocked when she passed away two days after Christmas.
“It was real tough,” he says. “But if we had gone to a bowl game I wouldn’t have been there. It was a disappointing season in football, but I got to see her and talk to her those last times.”
Since then, the community has pulled together to take care of Heath. Although his older sisters and brother, Wreynard, are still there for him, he says that when he has a need, he simply calls home and the people of Belle Glade pull together to take care of it.
“That’s the way it is down there,” he says. “That’s why all of us from back home wear the shirts and the hats that say ‘Muck City.’ We’re proud of being from there.”
