By Bob Hertzel
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Noel Devine remembers the moment the same way you remember the day you met your wife.
He was a football star from North Fort Myers, Fla., an Internet darling who had captured America’s imagine with the YouTube.com videos of his elusive running style. But that was high school and this was college and he was alone, coming up outside Towers, where all the freshmen must live.
He approached a bench and sitting on it was another black student, about his size, even similar facially.
“He was sitting there, looking sad,” Devine recalled.
He went over and introduced himself to Jock Sanders and it was one of magical moments.
“It was my first day away from home,” Sanders remembered, “just one of those days.”
You are from St. Petersburg, Fla., almost a thousand miles from home, alone, friendless really. School is in front of you, football is in front of you. You are in need of someone to talk to.
And then along came Noel Devine.
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How do describe friendship?
You ask Bill Stewart, the coach of these two juniors who make up a whole lot of his West Virginia offense that will be facing Florida State on Friday in the Gator Bowl, each, perhaps, playing for the final time in a West Virginia uniform, about them.
He laughs the kind of laugh that is warm and sincere.
“They are Ding and Dong,” he begins. “Frick and Frack. Pete and Repeat. Chip ‘n Dale.”
You can add your own … peanut butter and jelly, franks and beans, helter and skelter.
They just belong together.
Devine is 5-8, Sanders 5-7, or so the roster says. Both wear beards with closely cropped hair.
They argue about which one is better looking, but the truth is there really isn’t much to choose from.
But it is more than just size and ability and the area from the world in which they come. Ask them how they are the same and Devine stops and thinks for a moment.
“That’s deep,” he says. “There’s so much. Our families are alike, we grew up alike. We just have so much in common. I believe things happen for a reason and we were put together for a reason.”
“We think alike,” Sanders said. “We will say the same thing, almost exactly at the same time.”
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Life was not easy for either of them. Devine’s plight, of course, has been well documented in his years here, losing his mother and father early, moving from house to house, sometimes living at the school, moving in with Deion Sanders, then returning home when Sanders was thinking of adopting him.
He had children early, now has three of them. Sanders is the same, a young father with responsibilities.
And this past year he got himself into some trouble, the kind of trouble kids in college get into but no one knows about because they aren’t football stars.
In some ways it was crossroad in Sanders life, for Stewart could have turned his back on him, sent him off into the dark night to fend for himself.
But there is so much that is decent about Sanders that Stewart pushed tough love on him. He suspended him, let him stew for a long time, then gave him a chance to work his way back onto the team, finally reinstating him.
All the while, as he twisted in the wind, Devine was there to help him, advise when he needed advice, push him when he needed to be pushed.
He was crucial to getting Sanders back, sort of Touchdown Twin for Devine. This year Devine frushed for 1,297 yards and 12 touchdowns, Sanders caught 70 passes for 674 yards and three TDs, ran 34 times for another 168 yards and a touchdown and returned punts for 146 yards, an average of 8.6 per return.
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They were almost too good, for now they both are considering heading out of college football after this year, taking their chances with the NFL.
There is a lot of money there and they have a lot of family obligations.
“They could be at the top of any draft list,” Stewart said.
Certainly there is family pressure to take the money and run. Stewart is all for them to do what is best for their individual situations.
“If someone has a chance to better himself, I would never hold that against them,” he said.
But he wants them to be sure, to go through the NFL process, see where they might fall in the draft.
“If they are going to be high picks, go,” he said. “But if, after the third year you are going to be a free agent, it’s not real smart to go.”
Both are non-committal now.
They have a lot to think about.
“No decision has been made yet,” Sanders said.
Devine said the same thing, that he’d look at it all after the bowl game.
But they saw what happened when Steve Slaton left early and succeeded in the NFL, saw how it was for Darius Reynaud, who is almost a carbon copy of Sanders, and how he made it with Minnesota.
They claim they are not joined at the hip, that they will make independent decisions, in part because it is doubtful the same team would take them both together.
If both left, however, it would be a big hit for Stewart’s program, coming all at once, just as he’s breaking in a new quarterback, too.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
