FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A year ago, while trying to figure out what to do with his wayward life, Kyle DeVan was a substitute teacher, enduring the kind of cruel treatment substitute teachers get from wise-cracking school kids.
On Sunday, DeVan will start at right guard for the Colts against the Saints in Super Bowl XLIV.
Fittingly, DeVan’s life is the ultimate lesson plan any school teacher should bring to the classroom.
Disappointed time after time in pursuit of playing in the NFL, DeVan never gave up on his goal. And now look where he is.
“I don’t know how I did it,” DeVan said. “I just worked hard and kept believing in my dream.”
The road to the dream was hardly a smooth one for him.
DeVan, an undrafted free agent out of Oregon State, was on the Jets’ practice squad for about nine weeks in the 2008 season before being released that December, the third time he’d been cut by the Jets and fourth time overall in the NFL.
He went back his parents’ house in Vacaville, Calif., and found himself at a sobering crossroad in life.
“The low point was living at home, waking up not having anything to do,” DeVan said. “I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have bills to pay. I didn’t have anything productive to do in the day. Doing nothing gets very boring very quickly.”
So a week before last year’s Super Bowl, DeVan called his old high school principal, Ed Santopadre, seeking some part-time work.
He was hired and made $100 a day, working four or five days a week.
Then DeVan got a call from Brent Winter, the coach of the Boise Burn in the arena2league — minor league football, if you will. They had an injured offensive lineman and DeVan was in his car the next day, driving 11 hours to get to Boise to play in a game the following day.
“I had nowhere else to go, no job, no place to play, and if I wanted to make it here, where I am now, I had to go play arena,” DeVan said.
He made $250 per game if the Burn won and $200 if they lost. The Burn went 3-1 while DeVan was there and then he got a call from the Colts to come to Indianapolis for a workout in April. He was signed on the spot.
The 6-foot-2, 306-pound DeVan quickly picked up the Colts’ complex offensive system and by midseason he’d beaten out Colts former second-round draft pick Mike Pollak for the starting job at right guard.
“Very rarely do you find guys who have gone Kyle’s route,” Colts head coach Jim Caldwell said.
“Stories like that, they just make you feel good,” Colts running back Donald Brown said.
Kurt Warner, of course, made it from the Arena League to Super Bowl MVP, but the instances are few and far between.
“It’s an amazing journey that he’s been on in one year,” Colts left guard Ryan Lilja said. “He came in from playing in arena league to the AFC Championship game and the guy did not get frazzled and did not miss a beat, the game was not too big for him. That was pretty cool to see.
“I think everyone is kind of inspired by that perseverance. The guy didn’t quit and look where he is now.”
DeVan said he was going to keep chasing his NFL dream into 2010 before getting on with his life.
“I always felt like I could play in the NFL if I got the right system,” DeVan said, “the right team at the right time.”
Enter the Colts.
“It’s crazy to think that I was out of football a year ago and this has happened so quickly,” DeVan said. “I’m thankful for being here and for what I have. There have been days when I get home and I’m like, ‘I’m starting!’
“It’s nice to look back on it and see the last year of my life and everything that I was able to do, but I’ve got to make sure I keep getting better so I don’t go back to that, that I don’t go back to where I was a year ago.”
Along with never quitting, another lesson to be learned from DeVan is to stay humble and hungry.
DeVan, by simply acting out his life, has provided more valuable lessons than any he brought with him to those classrooms a year ago.