Tommy DeVito: A New Jersey quarterback's journey from Don Bosco to the Giants

EAST RUTHERFORD - Marcus Valdez was hustling out of his Montreal apartment and headed for the local sports bar when his cell phone started going crazy.

Turns out Tommy DeVito, his high school teammate at Don Bosco, was the one causing the stir in their circle of New Jersey friends, now stretched across the country and, as life would have it, north of the border, too.

"I was on my way to watch the games on the Red Zone Channel because we don't get all the NFL at our place, and all of a sudden my phone was blowing up," Valdez recalled in a phone conversation with NorthJersey.com on Tuesday night.

"We knew the games kicked off, and then all these text messages start hitting, one after another. Every one was the same - 'Tommy's in! Tommy's in!' - and it was like, 'Man, we can't believe what we're seeing, and then with Tommy, we can sort of believe it, too.'"

As DeVito admitted at his locker Wednesday, a couple hours after being named the starting quarterback of the New York Giants for Sunday's game against Dallas Cowboys, his journey from Don Bosco to Big Blue as an NFL long shot has been both surreal and earned, and with several twists of fate, too.

Daniel Jones is out for the season after tearing the ACL in his right knee. Tyrod Taylor is on injured reserve with a rib cage injury and his return, at the moment, is uncertain.

The QB left standing is the 25-year-old undrafted free agent who grew up 20 minutes from MetLife Stadium, where he led one of the New Jersey varsity powerhouses to the State championship as a teenager.

The Giants. The Cowboys. A crowd of 90,000-plus inside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and a television audience in the national 4:25 p.m. window with two other Jersey guys, Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen, calling the game with Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi on the sidelines.

'It's a shock to everybody, right?'

And in the center of the spotlight, at least on the Giants' side, will be the unlikeliest of competitors who, just judging by the odds, isn't supposed to be in this position this soon, and most of the time not at all.

“I think it’s a shock to everybody, right?” DeVito quipped.

Certainly is, but that is not stopping those closest to DeVito from relishing the chance to share insight from their time with him on his path to this opportunity.

A chance meeting with private quarterbacks coach Leon Clarke at a local training facility led Tom DeVito, his dad, to book a few sessions to improve his son's game. Tommy DeVito was 6 years old.

"Tommy was starting to play flag football at the time, and his dad wanted to see about him getting faster, so we started doing some training," Clarke told NorthJersey.com. "I remember we worked on his drop backs, because he would drift into the A-gap and then over the guard. So we focused on the little things: drop in a straight line, put some cones down. OK, now you know how to three-step drop, now we're going to focus on what you do with your eyes, how to manipulate the defense, how to scan the field. All the details that helped him take the next step."

The next step was more of a leap into high school with Don Bosco as one of eight quarterbacks in the position group when he arrived as a freshman.

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Unafraid to shake off mistakes

"There was a big weight to carry for those guys, all of them, because of what Gary Nova did for Bosco," said Danny Marangi, the defensive coordinator for Don Bosco at the time and now head coach at St. Joseph Regional in Montvale, another power where the McCourty twins first honed their skills. "Tommy always had a lot of zip on his ball, the way it came out of his hands. And in practice his freshman and sophomore years, he went against a damn good defense in practice on the scout team and competed.

"Tommy wasn't scared. He didn't shrink if he made a mistake. If anything, he'd shake off that mistake, come back and not have any fear of making that same one again."

Eric Chakonis finished his career at Don Bosco as one of the school's most decorated wrestling champions. With all his success on the mat, he'll never forget his time with DeVito on the football team. One DeVito interaction with New Jersey coaching legend Greg Toal on Don Bosco's run to a State title in 2015 left quite the impression, speaking volumes about the confidence with which he plays, no matter the level.

“It was Bergen-Bosco, playoff game at Bosco, really close, really intense,” said Chakonis, who works in wealth management at Morgan Stanley. “Coach Toal was really on edge at halftime, it was a really close game and you just had the feeling one play in the second half was going to change the entire game. I remember me and Tommy were walking up the hill to the field, and we came up on Coach Toal, he was pacing. Tommy turns to him and says, calmly, ‘Coach, listen, I got this. This is what we are here for. This is all on us. We’re taking this home.’”

Don Bosco was down 12-0 after the first quarter, but had battled back to take a 14-12 lead at halftime on two TD passes from DeVito. He threw a third touchdown pass in the third quarter after making his promise to Toal and the Ironmen, and Don Bosco never trailed again.

Two weeks later, DeVito led the Ironmen to a State championship victory – appropriately enough, at MetLife Stadium with Giants’ bunting and banners all over the stadium.

“Tommy DeVito makes you have faith in him, you believe in him because of who he is,” Chakonis added. “I’m a Giants fan, and it’s bittersweet, because I expected much more from this season. But getting the chance to see Tommy out there, and as the starting quarterback for my team again, I know one thing: if he’s out there, I know we’re going to get everything, and I mean everything he has, and right now, given where we are at, that’s something I know we can count on.”

Dreaming big dreams

DeVito knows nothing is promised, especially not when you get to the league the way he did.

Those who know him best are having fun dreaming big dreams, and DeVito would not have it any other way for himself, either. He wore No. 13 at Bosco, and now, when Marangi, a lifelong Giants fan, sees their former quarterback wearing No. 15 for Big Blue, there are immediate flashbacks to another backup quarterback who stepped up and directed the franchise to Super Bowl XXV: Jeff Hostetler.

“Hopes and dreams, that’s why we play the game, and he's got the 15 on,” Marangi said. “Maybe Tommy plays his way into a Hostetler role as a backup next season, and five or six years from now, he steps in and leads this team to the Super Bowl. That’s what you dream about now. Who thought Kurt Warner was going to be this great QB when he was stocking shelves [at a supermarket]? You hold onto that dream as a fan, and as someone rooting for Tommy. Is that going to happen? Probably not. That’d be so crazy, it makes you laugh.”

He paused before adding with a tinge of hopefulness in his voice: “But just imagine if it did?"

DeVito has that opportunity now to make that dream come true.

In many ways, he already has.

But what if this is only the beginning of DeVito's remarkable story and not the final chapter?

Those who have been on the journey with DeVito believe since they have watched him do it before.

This is the NFL, though, where respect is earned, and the Giants have embraced DeVito's presence and potential, just as Don Bosco once did.

"It wasn’t matter of whether he’d be the guy," said Valdez, a former Boston College star now playing defensive line for the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL. "It was a matter of when, and that's because of who Tommy is."

The odds are against this becoming more than a bid for the backup job for next season and beyond.

Then again, if odds mattered, Tommy DeVito would not be in this position in the first place.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Tommy DeVito: New Jersey football career from Don Bosco to NY Giants