VANCOUVER, Wash. (KOIN) — DeVante Clayton’s life has had its ups and downs, to put it mildly. He started playing football in 8th grade, and since then football has become family for him.
The Prairie High School student athlete is a staple for the Falcons, playing nearly every defensive snap this season as well as doubling as one of their bruising running backs. But football, like much of the rest of his life, has been far from stable until just a few months ago.
His mom struggled with substance abuse for much of his life, which led to him moving quite a bit.
“From, like, 3rd grad to 8th grade, but she wasn’t there all the time,” he told KOIN 6 News. He said he moved “probably like 8 times.”
He still worries about his mom but, he said, she’s doing better. So is he.
“I always wanted to play football,” he said. But when people asked him why he hadn’t, he said, “We never had the money. And they said, ‘We can figure that out.'”
Through all the moves and the uncertainty of his life at home, DeVante found solace on the football field.
“It made me who I am because, like, before, I never used to really talk to anybody,” he said. “Football made me be able to, like, open up and talk to people.”
DeVante spent his first year-and-a-half of high school in Arizona, living with a relative. He came back to Prairie High in January and was living with his brother. But when his living situation again became unstable, his team stepped up.
“One day I got pulled into a meeting and it was pretty much about how his living situations was going to change again,” Head Coach Mike Peck told KOIN 6 News. “As a team, we’re going to try to figure out a more permanent solution for him and make sure he has a place to go.”
He’s now living with Coach Peck. He has a 4.0 grade point average and dreams of becoming a surgeon — after he’s done playing football.
He is also still soft spoken. His coaches, though, say DeVante’s work ethic speaks loudly.
“The first thing I noticed about him was just how hard he works,” Peck said. “When he got up in the weight room he just attacked it and the cool thing was just how he interacted with the other kids, trying to teach them how things were done and guide them on the way that we do things.”
Peck sees good things in the future for DeVante Clatyon.
“I just think the biggest part is the hardest part of his life is behind him,” Peck said. “He’s withstood some pretty good storms and he’s come out on the right side of it and he knows that he can go through anything and get through it. There’s better days ahead.”
