There are unique ways to decide where to attend college, and then there’s Chase Ferris, who took matters into his own hands while in the wilderness.
Faced with a decision between attending the University of Mary to continue his football career or the University of Wyoming to focus on academics, the Palmer High standout decided he would wait and see how his bear hunt turned out. According to the Mat Su Valley Frontiersman, if he successfully killed the bear, the lifelong Alaska resident would head to North Dakota and University of Mary. If he didn’t? Wyoming.
As it turns out, Ferris got his bear, and the University of Mary got its running back.
“We’d gone up for (the bear) once. We hadn’t seen it in two days. I said, we kill it, I’ll go play football,” Ferris told the Frontiersman. “Once I made the decision, it’s a full commitment. (The) decision was weighing me down. I was losing sleep over it. It’s the biggest decision I’ve had to make.”
While Ferris may hail from a state that isn’t best known for football, there’s little question that the Marauders are getting a special player. The running back led the state with 1,311 yards rushing as a junior and surpassed 200 yards in a game six times, per the Frontiersman’s records. He almost matched his junior total as a senior despite missing multiple games with injury.
Now he’ll head to the University of Mary just trying to make an impact again. His high school coach, for one, has little doubt that he will.
“He’s a playmaker,” Palmer head coach Rod Christiansen said after Ferris garnered all-state honors for the second straight year. “A dynamic player who does so many things for you. He’s a really special player.”