All he needed to see was the light. The light would provide the answer.
The question? Where should Chase Claypool, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound athlete from Abbottsford, British Columbia in southwestern Canada, take his vast skills to play college football in the United States?
Claypool first honed those skills as an enthusiastic BMX biker, and then on the basketball court where his boundless energy and bounce made him a natural. Midway through high school, he began to show an affinity for football in 7-on-7 competitions in Seattle. Why not? He was a spectacular athlete in everything else that he tried.
From one connection to the next, the University of Notre Dame learned of this freakish athlete from Abbottsford, about 40 miles from Vancouver and 115 miles from Seattle. The Irish extended an invitation to Claypool to participate in Notre Dame’s annual summer gathering of football talent – the Irish Invasion.
When Claypool visited Notre Dame in July of 2015 with Eddie and Karen Ferg, his trainers from Air Raid Academy in Langley and Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, they were looking for a sign, a clue as to what made Notre Dame the “magical place” it was purported to be.
“When we arrived, it was night and we had never seen those firebugs before,” said Eddie Ferg, referring to the fireflies that inhabit northern Indiana during the summer months. “We would catch these little glimpses of light flashing everywhere.
“Chase would always ask how he would know what was a good situation for him, and how would he know how to pick a school. Karen said to him, ‘You’ll figure it out by the feeling in your stomach and the feeling of being home.’
“It wasn’t long after we got there that Chase said, ‘You know, Mama K, I’m getting that feeling.’”
LIFE’S CHALLENGES
Very little about Chase Claypool’s childhood was easy. As the youngest of four brothers, two step-brothers and a sister, every-day life – the “simple things” taken for granted like a consistent meal or daily guidance – were far from guaranteed.
Sometimes a granola bar would comprise his nutritional intake for day.
“He would be hungry a lot and be on his own,” Ferg said.
When Claypool attended the Sound Mind, Sound Body camp in Michigan, one of the coaches wondered why he seemed to be running funny.
“Son, do your shoes fit?” Claypool was asked. “No,” said Claypool, “they’re too small.”
Claypool’s mother, Jasmine, did the best she could for Chase and his siblings. But as a member of a traveling carnival, she frequently was gone for long stretches at a time trying to make ends meet for her family.
“The kid damn near raised himself,” said Mike Denbrock, former offensive assistant under Brian Kelly who, along with defensive line coach Mike Elston, began the recruiting process with Claypool at Notre Dame back in 2015.
“Yeah, that’s it in a nutshell,” said Simon Lazanja, a sports consultant for aspiring Canadian athletes seeking opportunities to play college/professional football. “He had to raise himself.”
In 2011, when Claypool was 14, his only sister – Ashley -- committed suicide. She was 17.
“I never wanted to believe it,” Claypool said. “I always thought it was some kind of mistake. It didn’t set in for me until the funeral when I broke down. I never saw people in my family – my stepbrother, my dad – cry like that.”
When Claypool arrived as an aspiring member of Notre Dame’s Class of 2016 recruiting class, Claypool – not one that would project to Notre Dame or easily blend in with a largely affluent student body – a significant transition was expected.
“Growing up, he’s had to overcome a lot of adversity as a young man,” Kelly said. “There were some growing pains along the way. I give him and his mom credit. He’s a strong young man in the sense that the adversity that he’s had here, he’s been able to fight through those things because of what he’s had to experience growing up.”
Not only was blending in with the general student body difficult, so too, at times was becoming an interlocking piece with his teammates.
“He was a little volatile when we first got him,” Denbrock said. “It stemmed more than anything from being such an unbelievable competitor. He’s not going to be denied. I think it starts there.
“Earning the kid’s trust was huge because he had grown up in a situation where he couldn’t really trust anybody but himself. We knew it was going to take some time.”
DISCOVERING CLAYPOOL
Jacob Carvery, Claypool’s stepbrother and former University of British Columbia football player, first alerted Ferg about his younger brother Chase on Facebook.
“Listen,” Carvery wrote, “my brother is pretty talented. Would you be able to train him and take a look at him and tell me what you think?”
At night, the Fergs would train budding athletes at Air Raid Academy. On the weekends, they would take 7-on-7 teams to Seattle to compete.
“We started Air Raid Academy basically because we saw a lot of kids in the area that had really big dreams but not a lot of people believed in them and nobody was really contacting the schools, so we thought we’d just bridge the gap,” Ferg said. “Chase was a junior in high school at the time.”
Although a great athlete, catching a spinning, oblong-shaped ball didn’t come naturally to Claypool right away.
“Chase was extremely raw coming in,” Ferg said. “Even in our first 7-on-7 game with him, our quarterback was like, ‘What’s so great about this guy? He can’t even catch the ball!’ Balls were banging off his chest, off his head…He started to light it up after he relaxed a bit.”
If there was any doubt about Claypool’s athletic ability translating to the next level, his promise was reinforced when the Bergs went to see one of Claypool’s basketball games against another Air Raid Academy product.
“It was Chase’s senior year and he put on quite a show,” Ferg said. “He scored 56 points. He was playing point guard and he did absolutely everything.”
Nevada, whose head coach at the time was current Irish special teams coach Brian Polian, was the first to offer Claypool a Division I scholarship. Scott Frost – now the head coach at Nebraska – served as Oregon’s wide receivers coach (2009-12) before being elevated to offensive coordinator in 2013. He was well aware of Claypool, but then landed the Central Florida head-coaching job, which pretty much removed Frost from the chase of Chase.
Claypool’s profile really blew up when he attended the Sound Mind, Sound Body camp in Macomb, Mich. The Wolverines and assistant coach Jay Harbaugh – son of head coach Jim Harbaugh – were very interested in Claypool.
Ferg had alerted Lazanja – a 30-year acquaintance of Denbrock’s from his days at Grand Valley State with Brian Kelly – about the budding talents of Claypool. Lazanja has helped dozens of young Canadian athletes land college football scholarships. He passed the information on to Denbrock.
“I watched the film and the kid was just a freak,” said Denbrock, who now serves as the offensive coordinator at Cincinnati. “He was scoring 10 touchdowns in a game in eighth grade. The competition obviously wasn’t very good, but you always try to judge it based on, ‘All right, the competition is bad. We’ll all agree on that. Now this kid is scoring 10 touchdowns and playing free safety on defense and is coming downhill and hurting people. At the very least, he’ll come in here and be a great special teams guy.’
“He had a big body, he was tough…He didn’t have very refined receiving skills. I thought he might end up being a tight end. But when we got him on campus, it was like, ‘Holy, sh*t, this guy can play wide receiver!’ He runs like the wind and he’s a little inconsistent with his hands, but so is Will Fuller, for God’s sake.
“Once we got involved, Michigan was close to offering. We pulled the trigger. He’s come a long way. He looks great. Obviously, (current Irish receivers coach) Del (Alexander) has done a great job with him.”
CARVING A PATH
As a freshman at Notre Dame in 2016, Claypool had difficulty getting on the field, at least at wide receiver. He caught just five passes for 81 yards, including a 33-yarder against Michigan State. But it was on special teams that Claypool really excelled.
He finished with a team-leading 11 games covering punts and kickoffs, including eight of Notre Dame’s 19 tackles on punt coverage.
As a sophom*ore in 2017, Claypool began to emerge at receiver with 29 catches for 402 yards and two scores as Equanimeous St. Brown paced the team in grabs with 33.
As Miles Boykin shifted to the forefront in 2018 as the go-to W receiver – generally the featured pass-catcher in Brian Kelly’s offense where one-on-one coverage is frequent – Claypool was setting his own tone. He began to physically take on all defenders every time he caught a pass.
Claypool assumed a “I refuse to go down” mentality on his 50 catches for 639 yards and four touchdowns, once again finishing second on the squad in receptions.
When Boykin decided to bypass his final year of eligibility with the Irish in 2019, Claypool switched from X to W receiver. Now it was time for him to really shine.
“Once he got an opportunity to be featured, I thought it would be a breakout opportunity for him,” said Kelly as Claypool enters his final regular-season game in a Notre Dame uniform with 140 career catches for 1,950 yards and 16 touchdowns, including 56 for 828 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2019.
Claypool has consistently made the spectacular look common. He has patented the high, reaching grab that coincides with a toe-touch to assure the reception. He wouldn’t consider running out of bounds with the option to take on a defender and squeeze out a few more yards.
Claypool has played with three dislocated fingers and a litany of other ailments as he’s either slamming into a defender or a defender is gathering up all his might to somehow try to dislodge the football from his grasp. That’s usually a futile effort as he clamps down on the football with “jaws of life” hands.
He’s still working his special teams magic as well with three tackles and a timely fumble recovery on punt coverage that set up Notre Dame’s first touchdown at Georgia.
Two weeks ago against Navy, Claypool dominated Notre Dame Stadium with seven catches for 117 yards and four touchdowns, tying a school-record for touchdowns caught by a receiver in a game.
“Chase always has the juice,” said Irish quarterback Ian Book. “He’s always talking. He’s such a confident person, as he should be. You can tell when he gets on a roll. You want to keep giving him the ball. Even though it might not be the cleanest look, he’s going to come down with it. He makes my job a lot easier.”
“I’ve been telling Book all year that it’s not a 50-50 ball,” said Claypool in a rare verbal expression of his supreme confidence. “It should be (called) an 80-20 or a 90-10 ball. I told Book if he throws it up, it’s usually a catch, a PI (pass interference) or nothing else.”
REALIZING A DREAM
Claypool had heard about the magic of Notre Dame through the Fergs, but didn’t know what it meant until he arrived on campus four summers ago.
“I didn’t know anything about them at all,” said Claypool of Notre Dame. “My coach told me they went to the national championship in 2012, so that kind of alerted me, and then I did some research.
“But initially, I just thought it was another school.”
Claypool can chuckle now looking back on his impression of Notre Dame compared to what it is today.
“I didn’t look at it as intimidating,” said Claypool, whose mother and various family members were in attendance for last weekend’s final home game. “I just thought it was full of opportunities and that’s what I was looking for, especially the business school.
“My visit definitely was different from all the other schools that I visited,” added Claypool, who ultimately had top offers from Michigan, Mississippi State, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.
“I think it was just the people. Will Fuller was my unofficial host. On my official visit, it was EQ and Miles. Each guy I got matched up with was super genuine. Miles and EQ told me to take all my visits and enjoy the recruiting process. They said. ‘I’m not telling you to come here. You’ll know if this is the school.’”
Through all the tests and trials – before his arrival and since – Claypool believes he’s maximized his opportunity.
“I’m definitely more mature, on and off the field,” said Claypool, who has grown to 6-foot-5, 230 pounds. “I’ve grown as a person and this school has allowed me to do that.”
Denbrock, who only had the opportunity to work with Claypool for one season, can look back on Claypool’s evolution with pride.
“It was never a question of how competitive he was athletically or anything like that,” said Denbrock, whom Ferg credits with “raising Chase” while Lazanja credits the Fergs.
“The question was whether we could get him to conform to Notre Dame’s style. Putting him in that environment, you wonder if you’re doing the kid any favors. It took a while with the things he’s had to deal with in his life.”
Whereas some under similar circ*mstances would have veered away from achieving goals such as striving to become an NFL football prospect or even a well-adjusted member of society, Claypool focused on the task at hand. He’s now put himself in a position to reap the rewards of his hard work and dedication this spring during the NFL draft.
A first- or second-round selection now seems likely, particularly on the heels of Boykin’s success this season as a third-round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens.
“He didn’t do what a lot of kids might do,” said Ferg, reflecting on Claypool’s childhood. “All he did late at night when he couldn’t sleep was go to the field and work.
“That night at Notre Dame for the first time, Chase was wondering what was so magical about Notre Dame. Then we all kind of had that feeling together.”
“We all have our stories,” added Kelly. “Chase’s story will be one where he got knocked down a couple times and he got right back up and kept fighting.
“That’s what I like about him. He’s had every opportunity to go in another direction and he has chosen the path that is going to make him successful, and that’s a great story.”
(Note: Excerpts from a story written by John Heisler for Notre Dame’s Strong Of Heart magazine were used in this piece.)
