THE ODDS HAVE NEVER BEEN KIND TO LEO FERRY. Born on August 23, 2006, with just 5% of a diaphragm, Ferry was taken from his mother for emergency medical treatment immediately after birth. Doctors and surgeons did not expect him to make it through the night and ultimately gave him a 20% chance of survival.
Ferry would defy those odds, spending a month in the hospital before finally coming home with his family for the first time, albeit under strict conditions. Among these stipulations were the presence of a home health nurse to monitor his condition, the use of a feeding tube and the restriction from attending preschool due to his health as he grew older.
But the worst rule of all? He was forbidden from playing sports.
The Ferry family eats, sleeps and breathes basketball. Leo’s father, Jim Ferry, enters his 19th season as a head basketball coach and his fourth at Division I University of Maryland, Baltimore County, while each of his siblings spent plenty of time on the court growing up.
“My earliest memories are on the sidelines of basketball games,” Ferry said. “Watching my dad coach his teams or cheering on my brother and sisters at all of their games, just dreaming of making big plays on those same courts.”
With that upbringing, Ferry was bound to end up on the court eventually. As both Ferry and his freedoms grew, the time he spent playing basketball did as well. Before he knew it, he was following in his older brother’s footsteps at John F. Kennedy High School on Long Island.
Ferry won the Jojo Wright Player of the Year award as a senior, averaging 21 points and leading all Long Island players in three-pointers (72) to set the school record and earn All-County honors.
Now playing at SU, Ferry becomes the first NCAA student-athlete to compete without a diaphragm. The lesson? Never let the odds define you.
“[Basketball] is the only thing I can always rely on,” Ferry said. “I haven’t stopped breathing, and I won’t stop dribbling any time soon.”