Chris Turner (American Football) - Early Years

Early Years

Turner was born on September 8, 1987 in Simi Valley, California to parents John and Grace Turner. His father was the original drummer of the hair-metal band Ratt. Chris Turner attended high school at the Chaminade College Preparatory School, where he was a three-year letterwinner and starting quarterback in football and pitcher in baseball. As a sophomore, he was on the junior varsity football team until midseason when the varsity quarterback suffered an injury against Valencia High School, a regional powerhouse. Turner described the incident as the last time that he was nervous during a game and said, "It got pretty ugly to be honest. Ever since then, I've always thought to myself, 'It can't get worse than that.'"

At Chaminade, he led a pass-oriented offense and, during his senior year, accumulated 139 completions on 265 attempts, 2,047 yards, 16 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions. He was named to the All-California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) second team as a senior and the All-Mission League team as both a junior and senior. SuperPrep picked him as a Far West all-region selection and PrepStar as an all-region selection. Turner was assessed as a Rivals.com three-star and Scout.com two-star recruit. He received scholarship offers from Boise State, Illinois, Louisville, Maryland, Oregon, Utah, and UTEP. Maryland offered him after another Californian recruit, Josh Portis, chose Florida instead—although Portis later transferred to Maryland and served as a backup alongside Turner. Turner ultimately chose Maryland, which is located just outside of Washington, D.C., partly due to his interest in politics.