NFL player gives back by coming back
Mike DeVito finds common ground with Maine's student athlete graduates
BY STEVE SOLLOWAY
Orono, Maine -- Mike DeVito believes in giving back and sometimes, words from the heart and mind can be more valuable than the dollars from a checkbook.
He had a very meaningful nine-year career as a defensive tackle in the NFL. He can trace his success back to his University of Maine experience.
Which is one reason he was asked to speak at UMaine's annual Senior Awards Banquet in late April. DeVito had announced his retirement from pro football a few weeks earlier. He's only 31 and about to begin the next chapter of his life.
His audience of about 150 younger men and women were writing the ends to their own chapters. Commencement was on hand. Most of them would not become professional athletes. They faced finding new identities.
DeVito was on common ground with them.
And DeVito suddenly was nervous. He had prepared a talk about transitioning to life after Maine and expected to see a small group of senior football players. Instead, many of the faces looking up at him were female. The assumption was his mistake.
His audience was 10 times the size he anticipated. He cleared his mind of many of his talking points that he now believed didn't fit. He cleared his throat.
DeVito might have been back on a football field where game plans are not scripts and where every play can be a surprise. He made the necessary adjustments and delivered the same message of finding confidence, overcoming adversity and developing a new identity when the old one no longer fit. He just chose different words, different images.
When he sat down, he heard the applause. Had he connected? "I don't know," said DeVito, two days later. "I didn't have a chance to talk to anyone afterward, one-on-one. It wasn't the talk I prepared, but I spoke from the heart."
Liz Wood, the senior women's basketball player who was the heart of her team, got the message. "I could relate to what he was saying."
Of course she could. The women's basketball team had the most remarkable turnaround of any UMaine team, going from America East doormats to contenders for the conference championship.
She and her teammates shouldered the discouragement of so many defeats during her first two seasons in Orono, plus a harrowing, out-of-control bus ride across five lanes of Interstate 95 en route to a game in Boston. The shared adversity and fear created a bond with her teammates.
DeVito spoke about the relationships with teammates that are forged in the fire of competition and in the experiences of simply being together and surviving a night turned upside down when a team bus crashed.
Don't, said DeVito, let those bonds loosen over time. The strength of those relationships was their safety net at UMaine but could remain in place for many years after. Wood listened and understood.
So did Janelle Bouchard, the starting catcher and lone senior on the softball team that was in the midst of its own turnaround.
"He made points I understood," said the America East Softball Player of the Year the day before she and her teammates left for the conference tournament. The Black Bears were seeded second.
John McCabe, a football player who endured too many injuries early in his career, didn't get his real chance to contribute until his senior season. He and his roommates sat with DeVito during the dinner portion of the banquet. McCabe had heard DeVito speak before in more informal settings.
"He's been described as a humble guy and he really is," said McCabe. "He played nine years in the NFL. He could have acted like a star but he was one of us and that said a lot to me. Did anything he say that night have an impact on me? Of course it did."
"It was surreal," said DeVito, recalling the moments before he spoke to the group. With his youthful face and humble demeanor he could easily have disappeared in the audience. Although hiding a 6-foot-3 former NFL defensive tackle is difficult. Even if he has lost more than 10 pounds off his last listed playing weight of 305.
His nine-year career was split between the New York Jets and Kansas City. He had called himself a football player since he was 8 years old. After 23 years, he no longer can say that. When he wakes up in the morning he knows he is a husband, a father, a Christian.
But he no longer plays the game that infatuates America.
"I'm going through the same transition you all are," said DeVito, who was only 10 years older than many. "It's a pretty scary spot to be in to see what's been a big part of your identity go away.
"This one door is closing, but look how much more ready we are to open new doors. We're going to have to handle adversity. But we've already done that, learning how to detach (from doubt) when we're faced with a fourth-and-1.
"That's when you focus on the challenge in front of you. You know how to do that."
Jack Cosgrove, now the senior associate director of athletics, introduced DeVito. As UMaine's head football coach, Cosgrove had offered DeVito a partial scholarship of $1,000 and the promise of an opportunity to play football at the Football Championship Series level.
DeVito was schooled in the game by his grandfather, Ralph Consiglio, a successful high school coach. DeVito's father, Vincent, was a champion bodybuilder who showed his son the proper techniques of weightlifting. DeVito's high school on Cape Cod had just added football. Wellfleet didn't have a culture of high school football. DeVito was learning on the run.
"Maine provided the perfect environment for a football neophyte (DeVito) to learn and eventually master his craft," said Cosgrove. "Once Mike got to the point where it was now more than the effort and toughness, that there were actually required skills to being a big man, he flourished. He was in the right place for this to happen and it happened on his clock."
DeVito became a bear on defense, a leading tackler for UMaine and a standout in the Atlantic 10 Conference, where Maine was a member school. Yet, DeVito's name was not one of the 255 players selected in the 2007 NFL Draft. Through seven rounds, all 32 NFL teams passed on him.
"Did I have doubts? No. No one was going to outwork me. That gave me my confidence. Someone would notice."
Ask DeVito if the Maine label was a liability as a so-called college football outpost and he quickly shakes his head no.
"Thank God I didn't go to any of the big-time schools. The University of Maine builds your character. It makes you so tough. You're not pampered here. I was the guy out running at minus 18 (degrees) outside because that's what I needed to do. I worked harder."
He signed a free agent contract with the New York Jets. He was one of 23 free agents reporting to the Jets' preseason camp and the only one to make the opening day roster. DeVito played regularly after his rookie season and in 2010 was named a starter. After the 2012 season, he left the Jets and signed a three-year deal worth $12.6 million with Kansas City.
This winter, DeVito was ready to work out in preparation for the 2016 season. But he had two concussions in 2015. His wife, Jessie, whom he met on campus, was pregnant with their second child. They reached the decision that it was time for DeVito to walk away.
The average career for an NFL player is about 3.3 years, says the NFL Players Association. The NFL says the figure is 6 years for those who make the opening day roster in their rookie season. That DeVito was undrafted and had a nine-year career speaks to the Maine man.
The NFL may be sport and entertainment but it's also a hard business. So little money is invested in free agent signees just out of college, they become expendable. DeVito's work ethic and positive presence in the locker room as a communicator gave him a value that his coaches and teammates respected.
"I was never released," said DeVito. His matter-of-fact tone couldn't hide the pride in his eyes.
He and his family live in Hampden, not too far from the UMaine campus. DeVito returns frequently.
He holds a University of Maine bachelor's degree in business administration, majoring in accounting. DeVito returned to campus after he began his NFL career to earn his final credits in 2014. He needs 16 credits to earn his master's degree in apologetics — the study of the defense of the Christian faith — from Biola University in Southern California.
DeVito knows he has new opportunities waiting for him. He hasn't determined yet which one he'll choose.
"Whatever it is, I'm going to crush it. I want to give back."
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New contributor Steve Solloway wrote the stories behind the stories of University of Maine student athletes, teams, and coaches for more than 25 years as the featured sports columnist of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. From men's basketball standout Rick Carlisle to football's Trevor Bates and the special legacy of wearing No. 9. From the freshman season of Cindy Blodgett and Maine's first appearance in the NCAA women's basketball tournament to the inspiring story of Ashley Drew's fight to beat cystic fibrosis and her fierce pride in Maine sports.
