By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — Normally, announcements of team awards are greeted with all the excitement of the rising of the sun in the East.
Every year it’s pretty much the same stuff … the All-Conference running back is that school’s Offensive Player of the Year Award, the senior defensive star is the Defensive Player of the Year and so forth and so on.
Write a couple of paragraphs, stick it on Page 6 and move on. It’s no threat to knocking Tiger Woods off the front sports page.
But this year’s announcement of West Virginia University’s Offensive Player of the Year offered a little something to chew on as the New Year’s Day Gator Bowl matchup with Florida State approached, for it honored something far more important than just yards gained or touchdowns scored.
The award was shared by Noel Devine, the game-breaking running back, and by his best friend, Jock Sanders.
Batman and Robin, they once called themselves.
The Caped Crusaders, indeed.
Both are small and fast. Both are from Florida.
And that they were in position to share this award this year is something of a warm Christmas story.
Devine’s tale, of course, is as well-known as Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” or the poem “The Night Before Christmas.”
Orphaned when both his parents died of AIDS related complications, shuffled from home to home, sometimes living alone, taken in by football star Deion Sanders, a high school phenom who became a YouTube.com idol with his spectacular running style, one to WVU and now about to either turn professional or enter his third season at West Virginia.
It is a tale that will be told years and years from now, a tale of inspiration, a tale of survival that seems to be headed for a happy ending.
But that Sanders is sharing in this honor this year is a tribute to his own ability to restructure his life and to a coach’s patience, trust and morality, the coach being WVU football coach Bill Stewart.
A year ago Sanders, underaged and overserved, juked the black Dodge Charger he was driving at 36 miles an hour through a 25-mile-an-hour zone over the center lane, drawing the attention of a police officer who would tackle him in his parking lot.
This, certainly, would be cause for some discipline from Stewart, but it was a second offense, the kind of thing that can rub a football coach the wrong way. A few months earlier Sanders and some teammates and engaged in some downtown fisticuffs outside an establishment known for serving alcohol, not food.
Suddenly, it was third and long for Sanders. Stewart knew that if he was to control his team and push the rules and morals that he believed in upon his players, he had come down hard.
He could easily have dismissed Sanders then and there, let Sanders down just as the athlete had let his coach and teammates down.
But Stewart took the hard way. He suspended Sanders indefinitely. He cut him loose but told him if he turned his life around, if he paid his fines and took his classes, if he became as good a citizen as he was a football player, he would consider taking him back.
No promises.
“I told him that letting him work out is an act of good faith on our part,” Stewart said at the time. “I did it with the backing of my athletic director and after talking to my seniors. But I also let him know that he must still pass the required DMV course and the Judiciary Committee.”
And so it stood. Sanders doing what he had to do, working at school, working at life and yes, working at football. He went to Pro Performance and busted his tail as hard as you can to stay in shape, to get stronger and faster.
Jock Sanders was not going to give up his West Virginia football career for a few beers.
Stewart laid the path out for Sanders.
“He has to get some help, and our job is to help him mature and become a better citizen in society,” Stewart said. “I gave my word when I got this job that we would have good citizens playing for us.”
It was a reclamation project, for sure, but one that worked because everyone involved was motivated to reach a happy ending.
And that’s just what happened. Sanders came back in the summer. He caught 70 passes for 674 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 168 yards. He ran back punts.
He blossomed as a player while staying out of trouble, putting a happy ending to what could have been a very sad tale.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
