Hyped RB has traveled difficult road to West Virginia

	Noel Devine joins a potent West Virginia offense that averaged nearly 39 points per game last season. AP
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If it were only about football, Noel Devine would be a household name. Like the cult of nearly 190,000 viewers who have made him a YouTube sensation, you would stare in disbelief at this video (WARNING: Video contains explicit language) as he rips off run after run, unleashing an uncanny elusiveness and speed, and you'd swear those highlights just had to be doctored.

If it were only about football, all that would matter is that the five-star prospect is eligible and is already in Morgantown, W.Va., taking theater and sports management classes and preparing to become another weapon for an already explosive West Virginia offense led by Heisman Trophy candidates Steve Slaton and Pat White.

If it were only about football... But with Devine, it always extends well beyond the 100-yard field. It extends well beyond the 6,894 yards and 92 touchdowns the running back amassed at North Fort Myers (Fla.) High -- and he has come to accept that.

"I can't make everybody like me," he said from his West Virginia dorm, where he's rooming with fellow freshman Brandon Hogan. "No matter what I do there's going to be people who don't like me and then talk bad stuff about me, try to bring me down."

Such is the story of Devine. The spectacular talent who has drawn comparisons to Barry Sanders and Reggie Bush collides with a tragic and sometimes bizarre past that has led Devine to the cusp of being the next big thing -- or the latest can't-miss prospect to, well, miss.

Devine is no stranger to heartbreak and tragedy: both of his parents died of AIDS before he was 12 and he saw a close friend shot to death his sophomore year of high school. He also has two children (Andre, 1, and Desirae, 2) with two different women, and despite the fact that his maternal grandmother is his legal guardian, has lived with a family for the better part of seven years. Most infamously, Devine was nearly adopted by mentor Deion Sanders (a North Fort Myers product) last August before taking a Cadillac Escalade from Sanders' Dallas-area home, driving it to the airport and leaving it parked at the curb before flying back to Florida.

"I think everything that he's ever loved has either died, left him or wronged him in some form or fashion," said Sanders, who remains close to Devine, sending him daily inspirational text messages.

While the nuggets of his past fuel the message boards and plant the seeds that have caused people to shackle him with the tag of another troubled, ultra-talented teen with no discipline and no direction, those closest to Devine paint a very different picture: one of a misrepresented lightning rod who has simply been dealt a bad hand and made some questionable choices. To his biggest defenders, the so-called bad boy with the gold grill and the braids is anything but bad.

Try misunderstood.

"He's had some stumbles but what people don't see about Noel Devine is that he's a great, great kid," said Ken Burns, the North Fort Myers assistant principal who was a central figure in helping Devine qualify academically for college. "Once you really get to know him you just fall in love with him."