
- From the Delta to the big leagues, the Shaw-native’s mission was always to express his love and gratitude to God by loving and giving to all those God sent across his path.
Here in Mississippi, the name Boo Ferriss has been synonymous with baseball ever since 1945 when the young rookie pitcher from Shaw, Mississippi, population 1900, set records at Fenway Park in Boston.
During a career that spanned 46 years, Boo’s awards and accolades included induction into the American Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame, Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, and the Red Sox Hall of Fame. He was named NCAA Regional Coach of the Year three times and was twice selected Mississippi’s College Baseball Coach of the Year.
When he graduated from Shaw High School in 1941, he received the first-ever full scholarship to Mississippi State University. Boo soon caught the attention of Boston Red Sox scouts, and by the end of the 1942 season, he had signed with the Red Sox.
The Army and World War II delayed the start of his professional career. When the war ended, Boo headed to Boston, where, at the time, the team was in dire need of a pitcher. The lanky Delta boy with a gentleman’s manners and winsome Southern drawl did not disappoint.
He won 46 games in his first two seasons for the Red Sox and set a record for 22 scoreless innings. He was called “the toast of Boston” during the era when baseball was indeed America’s favorite pastime. Few professional athletes had a more promising future ahead of them.
A worsening asthma condition plagued Boo during the beginning of the 1947 season. But instead of asthma, a career-ending injury took him off the mound and relegated him to pitching coach, a position he held until 1959 when he brought his family home to the state he loved. He would coach Delta State University baseball for 26 years where his influence shaped the lives of hundreds of young men he affectionately named “my guys.”
Always upbeat and grateful, he never seemed to spend a minute bemoaning the injustice of the abrupt end of his promising career in major league baseball. Fame and fortune were never his goals.
Boo passed away in November of 2016, but into his 94th year, he was still answering fan mail and keeping up with his former Delta State baseball players — always the mentor and the encourager and the humble guy from Shaw. He was a stellar husband to his wife, Miriam, father to Margaret and David, and a man whose faith dictated everything he touched.
Mike Kinnison, current athletic director at Delta State, played for Ferriss in the late 1970s. Kinnison says that Ferriss’s example, “What we saw in him and how he lived his life,” most inspired his players. Even in retirement, Boo Ferriss continued to impact the young men who came to DSU to play baseball. He would drop by practice, talk to the players, and bring his unique spark to every interaction. He never lost something special that inspired others to aspire to be like him.
His influence was huge, and not because his personality was the kind that takes over a room. He was quiet and intuitive but a “people” person. Boo took an interest in everyone he met, and few ever left his presence without thinking they had made a lifelong friend.
When David Meadows Ferriss was born in 1921, Shaw, Mississippi, was an idyllic little town in the Mississippi Delta. Everything, on a daily basis, revolved around church, home, and school. Boo said in an interview in 2005, “Between my parents, grandparents, and my high school principal and coaches, everything about my faith just fell into place.”
He was a toddler tagging along after his older brother and attempting to say “Brother,” when his best attempts ended only in “Boo.” The family thought the effort was rather cute and began to pin the nickname on the younger sibling. David Meadows Ferriss became “Boo” ever after.
Miriam Izard Ferris, Boo’s wife of 68 years, came to Shaw to teach school in the mid-1940s. She recalled the constant buzz about the town celebrity Boo Ferriss. When Miriam finally met this icon, the attraction was immediate on both sides. The more they talked, the more confident she was that Boo Ferriss was the man she would love forever.
After a courtship filled with separations because of baseball season, school year calendars, and the sheer logistics of a long-distance romance, Boo popped the question in the fall of 1948. One of the first things he said to his fiancé after she accepted his proposal was, “I tithe. Now, is that going to be a problem?”
The faith factor in Boo Ferriss’s life was forever front and center. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) organization was just getting started all across the U.S. in the early 1950s. The strategy in those days was to go into a city and hold rallies where coaches and either college or pro players spoke about their Christian faith. It is no surprise that Boo Ferriss became one of the group’s most popular spokesmen. He was instrumental in bringing this parachurch ministry to his home state.
His first efforts on the Delta State campus quickly gave birth to more FCA chapters around the state in schools and colleges, from Olive Branch to Biloxi. FCA offers an annual FCA Boo Ferriss Integrity award to an outstanding Mississippi coach whose life exemplifies the standards of its namesake.
For decades, Ferriss kept a constantly updated list of all of his former players. Out of about 500 who played for him, he had lost touch with no more than five. Coach Ferriss, An old-school letter writer, acknowledged weddings, births, job titles – you name it. He said in that 2005 interview, “I keep up with all my guys. My coaching years were joyful and rewarding – I’ll put it that way. Working with young men and then seeing them go on and be successful family men leading productive lives – there’s nothing better.”

As focused as Coach Ferriss was on influencing and encouraging the young men on his baseball team over the years, it is important to note that he never lost sight of his role as “Dad” to his two children.
Daughter, Margaret, who served as the Administrator for the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame for many years, shared her dad’s love for sports from her earliest years. But she is quick to say, “I never felt like his coaching or his love of his players interfered with the times we shared. As soon as the players enrolled at Delta State, they joined our family. They were my babysitters, my first crushes, and later would become my college classmates and colleagues.”
As a child, Margaret recalls her dad coming home in the late afternoons exhausted after practice. He never once complained when she enlisted him as a teammate in a friendly neighborhood baseball game or as her competitor on the tennis court. “He always wanted to be involved,” she says.
For all the roles Boo Ferriss juggled through the years, there was never any confusion or question about his heart’s purpose or passion. Whether he wore a Red Sox uniform, a DSU Statesman cap, or a coat and tie on Sunday morning, Coach Ferriss was focused. His mission was always to express his love and gratitude to God by loving and giving to all those individuals God sent across his path. Talent and opportunity created his platform, but baseball was just the means to an end, the end being that Boo Ferriss’s instruction, influence, and example left indelible and eternal marks on the lives of just about everyone who was privileged to know him.