MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — His childhood was as difficult as anyone you will ever meet or hear about and that is part of the reason why Noel Devine, the one-time high school sensation who carried his football skills to West Virginia University where he became one of their greatest running backs, is trying to see that today’s kids have a better time of it.
And that includes his own children, three of the five now athletes themselves and making a name for themselves just as he did ... but without so much grief and death and despair as he experienced.
What better day, than today — Father’s Day — to put Devine’s life and what he’s doing for his children and other kids in the spotlight?
These days he watches his third in line, daughter, Destyne Devine, set records in youth track. She burst onto the scene in 2017 as an 8-year-old when she finished second in the national Junior Olympics behind two national records, running 100 meters in 14.19 and 200 meters in 29.4 seconds.
Now, four years older, she is ready for the Junior Olympic Regionals in Fort Myers, Florida again and Devine is there for her.
“She’s doing great, getting ready for the Junior Olympics,” he said from his home Wednesday night. “I’ve been traveling everywhere training kids and trying to find time to train my kids. I don’t do as much of that now because they all have their own identity.”
Destyne’s older sister. Desirae, is a softball player in high school.
“I think she’s going to be all-first team softball,” he said, proudly. “She plays third base. She’s fast, athletic, amazing at what she does and she’s a great kid, a great student. She’s the leader. She’s got cat-like reflexes. But I don’t know if she could outrun her younger sister.”
And then there’s his son, Andre, who will be a sophomore this season following in his father’s footsteps, literally.
“They unretired my uniform temporarily so he could wear it in high school,” Devine said. “I don’t know if she can outrun her younger sister.
“He’s walking in the same footsteps I did.,” Devine said. “He just finished basketball. He’s picking that up fast. He just finished his second year and he is getting better each and every practice. He is a natural athlete. He’s making shots. Great kid, great personality, loving kid.”
And in football he’s starting to compile a highlight reel, although he will have go some to match the one his dad compiled as he was coming out of high school while compiling Lee County records of 6,954 yards rushing with 92 touchdowns.
While this isn’t meant to be about his kids, you can’t write about Noel Devine without including what they have become to him because of what he went through to reach this stage in his life, just past 30 years old.
“I’m extremely proud. I’m beyond proud,” he said of the accomplishments his children are making. “It gives me joy and excitement. Not knowing my father, I look at them and see attributes that I had. Watching them is my biggest joy in the world. To see them walk in their footsteps and carry the Devine legacy — the torch — is amazing and wonderful.
“They have that Devine gene. Watching them is like deja vu. I watch my son and I see some of the same moves, does some of the same steps down the sideline that I did. It’s crazy, man, to watch,” Devine continued.
“I never understood when people would say that when I got the ball they had to hold their breath. It’s the same thing with him. When he gets the ball you can hear the people take a deep breath. Now I can relate.”
But can they relate to their father as the background he escaped? Few can.
His local paper in Fort Myers, the New-Press, did a major take out on him in 2015 and in it he recalled the day when he was 11 years old that he roller-bladed from his aunt’s house to Lee County Hospital to see his mother, Abbigail Carter, who had been laying there for weeks in a coma.
The way he tells the story, he prayed and she opened her eyes and said, “Don’t cry.”
A few days later she was dead from AIDS.
Devine never knew his birth father, Moel Devine, who had died three months after he was born, also from AIDS. He’d never seen a photo of him until he was 15 and going through an old high school yearbook, where he was a sprinter. Devine believes he got his athletic ability from him.
“I still don’t know anything about my father,” Devine told the News-Press. “I figure my life is like a puzzle. I piece all the pieces together and eventually I will learn more.”
Devine was 8 years old before he learned that Mark Carter, whom his wife had married, wasn’t his real father.
He grew close to his mother, but it her addiction to crack cocaine continued to get worse until she died.
All of this, of course, left a lasting mark on Devine. He came to believe his name, Devine, had a deep religious meaning that helped his through troubled times.
Turner was his legal guardian and did introduce him to Pop Warner football when he was 12. He was, as one might guess, an immediate sensation.
Turner, however, was arrested in 1997 for drug trafficking as she was dealing with her sick daughter and seeing to Noel, who she wanted to have more for. She was incarcerated for 29 months.
Again, it had profound effect on Devine.
“I know why she did that,” he told the paper. “I know for sure she’s not happy with the choice she made at the time Life is too short to dwell on the past. God forgives; forgive and forget. That’s my whole thing.”
There was more tragedy, then a trip to Texas to live with Deion Sanders, the legendary cornerback, that he cut short to return home to Florida, his career at WVU. He finished as the third leading rusher in school history with 4,315 total rushing yards, a figure topped only by Avon Cobourne and Pat White.
The 1,465 yards he gained his junior year represent the fifth best rushing season in Mountaineer history, but in his senior year he suffered a toe injury, then an ankle injury, finished with “only” 934 yards, kept him from performing well in NFL workouts and went undrafted.
He played in Canada, injured his knee, came back and played in Wheeling in the Arena League and got into seeing that his children had a father and to helping kids through his Devine Speed camps. It’s become extremely important to him.
“I started Devine Speed in 2015 after I tore my knee up playing in Canada. I pretty much started it because I wanted to give to kids what had been given to me at the collegiate level through my trainer, Mike Barwis, one of the best trainers ever, one of the best motivators,” he said.
“He inspired me to come to West Virginia and to do the training. Now I am taking what I got from him and giving it back to the community by helping the kids get ready for college and, beyond that, the professional; level.”
While improving their athletic skills is the key element, Devine sees it as far more than that.
“It allowed me to build these kids up from a young age, give them the little things like mental toughness, never give up, things you can use in real life,” he said. “It isn’t just molding them for a sport.
“Of course, you want to work on being the biggest, strongest, fastest on the field whether it’s football, soccer or any other sport. At the end of the day, it’s all the same ... quickness, speed agility. It’s the same in life ... never give up, keep going, be accountable. All of this translates to real life.”
Devine says it keeps him fit, too, claiming he can still run a 4.2 40.
“If an NFL team would call me, I’d run it right now for them,” he said. “And I’ll play anywhere, running back, defensive back, anywhere.”
The NFL call probably won’t come but Devine he’d like to hear from someone in the Morgantown area willing to sponsor a Devine Speed camp for the kids of the area where he played his college football. He already had had camps in Wheeling, while playing Arena League ball there, and in Charleston.
You can contact him through Devine Speed on Facebook and Instagram.
