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Cathy White Ferland has to look up — way up — when her son walks into the room.
At six-foot-four and 310 pounds, Logan Ferland is everything you’d picture when you think of a football player: broad shoulders, strong presence, quiet confidence.
But in her eyes, he’ll always be the baby whose entire hand could once slip through his father’s wedding ring.
She laughed as she described what it’s like to hug him now. “It’s a bear hug, because you feel totally encompassed! And I’m not a small person, but you feel like you’re hugging a great big teddy bear. Except it’s hard muscles under there! Not soft and plushy.”
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Today, he’s a powerhouse on the field — making a name for himself as an offensive lineman for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, protecting the quarterback under the bright lights of Mosaic Stadium.
But Logan’s life began under a very different glow: the quiet, sterile lights of a NICU.
Logan Ferland spent his earliest days in an isolette in Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, fighting for his life at just two pounds, seven ounces. (Submitted)
“Everything was going along great,” White Ferland said, recalling her pregnancy. “Until 27 weeks. He decided to come early.”
What followed was every parent’s nightmare. Logan was born three months premature.
“He was two pounds, seven ounces. Very small,” White Ferland said quietly. “His head was the size of a small Gala apple. Seeing him all splayed out on the bed, hooked up to the ventilator and all these tubes going into him… that was hard. He was a pretty sick baby.”
For a month, she couldn’t even hold him. But when that moment finally came — four weeks after he was born — it was one she’d never forget.
Logan Ferland was four weeks old when his mother was able to hold him for the first time. The tiny, fragile boy Cathy White Ferland clung to would grow into a powerhouse offensive lineman for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. (Submitted)
“It was an incredible experience,” she said, her voice soft with emotion. “Holding him next to me, skin on skin, feeling like his skin was so fragile… I was too scared to even look down. But feeling the heat of his body on mine… When you’re holding someone who’s just over three pounds, you’re so scared of breaking them.”
She didn’t know what the future would hold. But she clung to one quiet certainty: “I just had the feeling he was going to be a strong fighter.”
And he was.
Logan Ferland’s first battles were fought not on the gridiron, but in a NICU isolette. (Submitted)
Logan fought. And his family followed his lead, never giving up.
“Every time we encountered a hurdle, we overcame that,” White Ferland said. “It just made me change my whole outlook on miracles.”
After 69 days in the NICU, White Ferland was able to bring her son home.
As the years passed, Logan grew, and grew and grew some more. He fell in love with football and trained relentlessly, putting in the work long before anyone was watching.
From the tiny NICU isolette to the high school football field, Logan’s story became one of quiet, unwavering persistence.
White Ferland remembers one moment in particular. They were walking into the school gym for a Remembrance Day service. On the wall were portraits of notable Melfort residents — people who had made their mark.
“Logan looked at that wall and said, ‘One day, my picture is going to be up here.’ And yeah,” she said, smiling, “It will be.”
Today, Logan wears number 63 for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
And White Ferland? She still cries every season opener.
“My phone’s full of videos,” she said with a grin. “When they call his name and he runs out through the smoke… it still gets me. Every single time.”
Ferland initially signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2019. From a tiny preemie in the NICU to a professional football player, his journey is a true story of overcoming the odds. (Submitted)
But White Ferland’s pride isn’t just about her son’s performance on the field.
It’s about the boy who once struggled to take a single breath — and the man he became.
“He’s got such perseverance,” she said. “People don’t realize the hours he puts in, even in the off-season. When people ask, ‘What’s Logan doing right now?’ I say, ‘Well… he’s probably at the gym.’”
This Mother’s Day, White Ferland hopes Logan’s journey offers something more than a feel-good story.
She hopes it offers comfort, strength and above all, hope — especially for families who find themselves in a place she knows all too well.
“He’s an inspiration,” she said. “If parents in the NICU hear about his story, maybe they’ll see that it is possible. Because never in a million years did I think we’d have a professional sports person in our family.”
Logan Ferland was once small enough to fit in the palms of his mother’s hands. For Cathy White Ferland, seeing him grow into the man he is today is the dream she held onto in those fragile early days. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
She paused, her smile growing as she looked at Logan with warmth and admiration.
“He makes me so proud. And I’m just hoping Logan’s story gives other people hope.”
There was a time Cathy White Ferland couldn’t hold her son without trembling.
Now, she wraps her arms around a six-foot-four mountain of a man — and still, she can’t help but marvel at how far he’s come.
