Noel Devine has learned at a young age that most of the general public will form some sort of opinion of you no matter what you do. The disturbing part of the equation is that most of the people with the opinions have never met him or even spoken to him. Like any teenager, Devine has made mistakes in his life. He has also put himself into position to be considered one of the best high school running backs in the nation and he has defied the odds of growing up without his natural parents, both of whom passed away when he was still in grade school.
“Noel is an ordinary high school kid,” Iandoli said. “I’d bet right now he’s fishing. The kid turns off his phone and goes fishing almost everyday.”
Despite, being one of the most talented running backs in the modern era, Devine does not have a massive amount of scholarship offers.
“Most schools are taking a wait and see approach with him,” Iandoli said. “I couldn’t tell you what offers he has. He has a few of them. At the end of the school year, myself and a couple of teachers took the mail out of the school for him. There were boxes and boxes of it. One day we counted he had received 75 letters. He may have offers in there that we don’t even know about. I know USC likes him a lot, Nebraska has offered, Florida, Florida State, LSU likes him a lot. Troy State has offered and they like him a lot. Miami likes him also. He is wide open and I can’t see him deciding early.”
Iandoli told us that even he isn’t sure what way his start pupil will go.
“He is very indecisive when I talk to him. I could see him taking visits to USC and Nebraska. We have talked about visiting the three schools in state. We’re not sure if he would take an official or unofficial visit. You would like to just take an unofficial, but will he truly get to see everything he wants to see?
As Iandoli has stated, schools are taking a wait and see approach because of Devine’s academic status.
“He got all B’s last semester and we’re trying to get him a Spanish class that he needs,” Iandoli began to explain. “Right now, we’re trying to get his courses set-up for next year. The problem were having is he has taken some remedial classes and the NCAA won’t give him credit for those classes towards his core. We are trying to contest that ruling so he can have those three-four classes count. He has A’s in those courses, so it would help him a lot. He did take the test. He did not do great, but it was not terribly bad either. I have seen a lot of kids do a lot worse and go to college. It will be tough; he needs about 100 more points on the test.
“We have put everything into place for him to make it. If Noel wants to make it he will.”
Devine realizes that a solid support system is one of the criteria’s that any school that hopes to receive his signature on signing day must have.
“Noel himself always wants to know what kind of system is in place for him,” Iandoli said. That is his first question “What kind of support do you have for me?” He wants to make sure that he is getting the right classes and that they are taking care of him.”
Devine has a solid support staff around him, a staff that includes “Prime Time” Deion Sanders. Iandoli insists that people made a lot more of that situation than what it actually was.
“Those two still talk on a daily basis; Deion is a very important part of North Fort Myers. That was never a distraction to us. I actually encouraged Noel to make the move. Now, Noel and his teammates all realize what we are trying to do here. We are trying to bring this program back to what it was like when Deion was here.”
Thanks to people like James Iandoli and Deion Sanders, Noel Devine is getting everything in line to take the next step. Iandoli hopes that next step will lead Devine to San Antonio, Texas and a spot in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.
“I watch that game every year and it would be an honor and a privilege for Noel and our program for him to play in that game.” Iandoli stated.