Cal Football: What Quarterback Chase Garbers Wants for his 21st Birthday

At home during the pandemic, Garbers can't wait for school and football to resume

Photo by Mark J. Rebilias, USA Today

Cal quarterback Chase Garbers celebrates his 21st birthday on Saturday. A pretty big milestone in the life of a young person.

He shares a June 6 birthday with Revolutionary War patriot Nathan Hale, Hall of Famers Bill Dickey (baseball) and Bobby Mitchell (football) and tennis icon Bjorn Borg.

In this conversation, recorded last month, we asked Garbers what would make him happiest on his birthday.

“Happiest? Shoot, if they told us we could go back to school. Play football again,” he said.

With the coronavirus still gripping us, there’s no definitive timetable on either of those questions yet, but we appear to be getting closer.

“I think we’ll get there eventually,” he said. “I think there’s certain factors where it’s kind of hard not to go back to normal.”

Garbers' growing maturity is evident in this Twitter statement he posted Thursday on the country's racial atmosphere in the wake of the George Floyd killing:

 Whenever he is able to return to campus, this will be Garbers’ fourth at Berkeley. He said it feels long ago when he was a redshirt freshman at Cal.

Now he’s established as the Bears’ starter in his redshirt junior season, leading an offense that returns every player who started in Cal’s win over Illinois in the Redbox Bowl.

(Click here for a story on Athlon magazine projecting Chase Garbers to have a breakout season.)

Garbers remains at home with his family in Newport Beach. I’m guessing there might be a birthday cake on the agenda Saturday.

Here’s a look at recent our story on Chase and younger brother Ethan, who will enroll in the fall at Washington to play quarterback for the Huskies.

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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