CHARLOTTE — There was an hour and a half until kickoff. Guys mingled about in the locker room and athletic training room, receiving pregame treatment, listening to music, playing cards, and working through their normal pregame rituals.

Through the cracked-open door of the team meeting room came the rhythmic thump of a basketball bouncing against the floor, then the periodic swish against the net. That's typically where you find Bryce Young when there's downtime, putting up a basketball on the goal installed at the front of the room, attempting to beat the ever-evolving record for most makes in a row. Sometimes he's joined by Andy Dalton, the two quarterbacks playing one-on-one, sometimes it's just a chance to catch a moment to himself.

This Saturday night, though, he's happily relegated to grabbing rebounds, acting as ball boy for Jase, and answering a barrage of questions that spill from the 12-year-old.

"Who's your biggest rival?" Jase asks, giving Young just long enough to explain NFL divisions before he wants to know how many people the quarterback has played in front of before. The former Heisman winner is talking about the crowds at Tennessee and Texas A&M, when Jase wants to know what Young's record number of makes on the basket is, and if it's more than his own impressive six.

"My record is in the double digits," Young tells him, "But I get a lot of practice. Andy and I are in here a lot."

So it goes for the next 10 minutes or so, Jase peppering his idol with the questions that are everything to a soon-to-be seventh-grader. He dribbles a couple of times before passing the ball to Young, telling him as he does, "This is a dream come true."

Young grabs the pass and pauses, giving a small smile.

"Me too, man," he responds. "Me too."

Jase Garland is 12 years old, a born-and-raised Carolina boy.

"Oh, funny," deadpans Hunter Renfrow when hearing that, pointing to the corner Jase has wanted to meet all day. "Jaycee is 12, too."

In November of 2023, Jase's mom, Erin Garland, began to notice bruises on her son. He played sports—soccer, basketball, baseball, and flag football—so getting knocked around wasn't uncommon. And when she would ask Jase where particular bruises had come from, he'd shrug as is typical for a pre-teen and tell her he didn't know.

She let it slide at first, presuming, like most, the bruising was the typical by-product of a growing boy playing physical sports. But it kept getting worse, and the discoloring was showing up in places that couldn't be explained away as just a run-of-the-mill sports injury.

So Jase's parents took him for blood work. Test results showed he had a low platelet and white blood cell count. A biopsy revealed Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a rare blood condition that is a genetic disorder which first appeared in Jase, and kept progressing as a precursor to leukemia.

"By January of '24, we knew he needed a bone marrow transplant," Erin Garland said. "So, found out what the diagnosis was and what we needed to do to keep him alive."

On May 7, 2024, while most of his friends were finishing up fifth grade, Jase underwent a bone marrow transplant.

"It was a really quick and scary process," she admitted, but now he's more than a year post-transplant, "and he is looking good right now, so far."

Those five months, though, felt like years for Jase, his parents, and the entire family. Jase is the youngest of five kids, and Erin laughingly admits, "He's like the grumpy old man kid who's always feisty and nervous about things and questions everything." So when he was diagnosed, she was worried.

How would he handle it? Would he worryingly question the entire process? Would he be able to grasp what was happening?

Instead, she watched as Jase became "a champion."

"So it sounds maybe cliche," she said. "But he's been, he's just taking this like a champ because he's had to be away from everybody for so long, so it's just, it's been—I'm impressed. I'm very impressed by him."

During that time, separated from his friends, school, and a normal day-to-day life, Jase leaned on football.

"He watches the stats and watches the clips and plays football on his video games and stuff," explains his mom. "That's what's helped him, I think, make it through."

So when Make-A-Wish visited in April of 2024, informing the Garland family that Jase was eligible for the program, his wish came easily, and was the first for the Panthers since 2018.

"I wish to be a quarterback for the Carolina Panthers."

To be a quarterback for the Carolina Panthers comes with a certain level of responsibility.

It requires arriving at the building early and taking part in the fanfare that accompanies such a signing. Fanfare like a welcome from the TopCats, Sir Purr, and the full PurrCussion drumline.

Once in the building, the QB has to always be alert and ready for coaching, so that if Dave Canales happens to walk through the lobby while waiting there with family, you can get some quick tips for your scoring play later, such as, "Stay behind your shoulders, watch your feet, don't look up till you cross the goal line."

From there, the quarterback heads upstairs to meet his quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator—"draw a play on the white board and we'll put it in for Week 1," Brad Idzik offers—before walking down to the signing room to meet with general manager Dan Morgan.

"We're signing you to a long-term deal here, man, it's a big deal," Morgan promises. "Multi-year deal cause we want you here a long time."

The two walk through the language of the contract, bond over both being lefties as they sign on the dotted line, and then head to Morgan's office so Jase can offer his opinions and insight on the depth chart, as a QB1 is sometimes asked to do.

Being the quarterback means getting a loud welcome at the start of the team meeting, as Canales introduces you to the squad: "There was a blockbuster move in Panthers football today," Canales will say before making introductions and telling Bryce Young to keep an eye on his new competition, Jase.

And of course, it comes with the requisite free-throw shot that is required of every new Panthers player in their first team meeting.

Being a quarterback means heading to the room at the end of the hall when it's time to break off for unit meetings, promising not to eat Dalton's candy, and taking heat from the rest of the room after naming mostly defensive guys when asked about favorite players. It means learning a cadence and going over the play you're going to be entrusted with later that night.

At some point, new players must be fitted for their helmets, testing out visors and mean mugs in the mirror to ensure ultimate intimidation, loving the way it looks so much one can't help but ask Don Toner, the head equipment manager, "Can I wear this for my press conference?" And as a quarterback, Jase must be outfitted with a green dot helmet, meaning he has speakers in his ears to receive plays from the coaches.

It comes with holding a press conference (sadly sans helmet), a requirement for all quarterbacks in the league—"Start with an opening statement," Young and Dalton offer as advice—and praising a new partnership. When asked about the jar of Mt. Olive pickles on the lectern in front of him, Jase coolly responded: "It's part of my NIL dill."

The quarterback takes time to walk around the locker room during downtime, shaking hands and spending a few minutes with each player so he can connect with all of his teammates, and gets excited about all the new swag that comes with the job.

It means arguing with a defensive player over who gets to wear the cooler number before Chau Smith-Wade finally relents: "Ok, you're the real 2-6 man. That's all you."

And being a quarterback for the Carolina Panthers specifically means having to deal with trash talk from Jaycee Horn.

"We ain't going to just let you score," Horn promises. "We'll meet you in the end zone… we're going to try to tackle you like we do on Sundays. Like you're Derrick Henry!"

And playing quarterback, or any position in the NFL and across sports, means dealing with a certain level of anxiousness and nerves. Luckily, there are others who have come before.

There are some things that only those few with the same lived experience can understand. Things like playing a professional sport with the weight and responsibility attached. Or things like the fear and isolation that come with being a fifth-grader spending months in and out of hospitals to receive life-saving treatments.

The lessons learned from each, though, are transferable, creating an invisible string between those who have overcome a fear to accomplish something greater.

Maybe that's why Jase is cautiously curious while walking down a quiet hallway, unable to stop himself from asking if Bryce Young gets nervous. And why he is shocked a few minutes later when the quarterback recognizes those nerves in the young boy's face and leans down to tell him, "It's OK, I get nervous before a big game too."

It provides permission to be vulnerable, for Jase to admit throughout the day he's anxious about going on the field in front of 40,000-plus people, he's excited but nervous about starting in a new school as a seventh-grader, he's still questioning so much of what comes next after a year-and-a-half of complete uncertainty.

Recognizing the emotions they've all felt themselves at times, the three quarterbacks and the rest of the team rally. They know the best way to deal with those nerves is to focus on what can be controlled. So Jack Plummer helps him get into his pads, showing him how to suit up piece by piece. Dalton promises him, "You're going to feel a rush whenever you get out there."

And as Jase's knee starts to bounce, the nerves rising once again when coaches announce it's almost time to take the field, Young leans over and reminds him again, "It's OK to be anxious, just turn it into energy."

On the field, guys take turns being the voice in Jase's ear (in addition to Idzik's, since he can hear every play call) to keep him calm. Dalton, hearing the calls as well, tells Jase what each call means and what is about to happen, like, "Ok, Bryce is going to throw it to Thielen right here."

Jonathon Brooks circles by every few minutes, checking in, sitting with Jase for a while whenever the offense is on the field, and keeping up a steady conversation to distract him from the crowd becoming overwhelming.

Then, it's finally time.

Jase will always have to continue his fight.

"He'll always have the risk of lung damage and hearing damage," Erin Garland explains, "but hopefully the leukemia part will be (gone)."

But this weekend, he gets to replace all the fear from the past year-and-a-half with moments to last a lifetime.

Moments like lifting weights with Thomas Davis in the weight room. Or seeing himself in uniform for the first time. Or when running back Rico Dowdle crashes the QB meeting so the two can connect over both being from Asheville and who they might both know.

Moments like drawing up a play, per Idzik's instructions, naming it after Chef Tracie from the players' cafeteria who served all his favorite foods, leaving it in the QB room for inspiration, and getting to tell Tetairoa McMillan that he was the primary target on said play.

"I like it," McMillan laughs, "I'm a fan then."

Moments like learning to take a handoff from Jonathan Stewart.

But none better than the moment he takes a handoff from Young, makes a jump cut to the left, and walks into the end zone to flashing lights and jubilation. Center Austin Corbett picks him up to celebrate in the middle of the mob before the entire team takes a dance break with Jase in the center.

As he walks off the field with Bryce Young, waving to fans and throwing autographed footballs in the stands, it's clear: Jase Garland got more than just his wish to be a quarterback for the Carolina Panthers. He got a dream come true.