Born in Columbus, Indiana, Fehring attended Purdue University, where he starred in football, basketball, and baseball, one of only two Purdue athletes to letter nine times. Fehring helped the Boilermakers win two Big Ten Conference titles in football and a national championship in basketball in 1932, and was the traveling roommate of John Wooden. Fehring was inducted into the inaugural class of the Purdue University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994.