FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — D’Vone McClure will be the first person to tell you his life makes for a pretty compelling story. The 25-year-old junior isn’t your typical student-athlete, and his age is only the beginning of the long list of characteristics that set him apart from his Arkansas teammates.

For the past seven years, McClure’s life has been a series of twists and turns and bumps in the road that somehow led him to this exact moment. He went from playing minor-league baseball after being drafted by the Cleveland Indians straight out of high school to joining Arkansas’ football team as a 22-year-old freshman, then retiring from football for a year before rejoining the Razorbacks.

Now, after changing positions for the second time in three years, McClure might gain another new experience when Arkansas plays San Jose State on Saturday. After seeing time as a receiver, then moving to nickelback, McClure is now at linebacker and might start in his first game at the position this weekend. Starting linebacker Bumper Pool suffered a strained clavicle against Colorado State and is listed as day-to-day. McClure is his backup.

The junior played in just five games as a receiver under Bret Bielema and made one tackle on special teams. He then moved to nickelback last season after his one-year hiatus, playing in all 12 games and starting six. He finished with 26 tackles and a sack, broke up three passes and forced a fumble. As a linebacker this season, he has 10 tackles, a quarterback hurry and a pass breakup.

Change doesn’t bother McClure much, though. It could be because of his maturity as the oldest member of the team, or it could be that he’s been through so many life experiences as a baseball player, a new father and a homeowner that position changes are relatively easy for him to navigate.

McClure’s journey to Arkansas has been long and winding, but it’s helped him grow into the determined, self-assured man he is today.

“I feel like I have a few more tools in my toolbelt,” McClure said. “Not saying that younger dudes don’t know anything, but I think the experiences that I went through and challenges has made this climb a little bit easier for me. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve been able to handle it a little better than if I was 18. Coming in at a later age, I think it was good.”

While other kids’ families would sit in the stands Saturday mornings in Jacksonville, Ark., Cynthia McClure caught everyone’s attention. D’Vone, 5 years old at the time, had just shed a tackler and was racing toward the end zone. Right beside him on the sideline was his mom, sprinting toward the end zone, too.

“That is true,” Cynthia says with a laugh when asked about her days of running up and down the sideline with her little boy. “To the fans and kids who saw me running down the sideline, I probably looked like this crazy woman who was running down the sideline with excitement, but to my children and myself it was a strategy. So if I ran fast, it meant run with all your might because it’s open, you can go, it’s a touchdown. If I slowed down and pointed my finger to the right it meant someone’s coming to your right. It was like a strategy. It was sideline coaching while I was in movement.”

With four boys and a husband, Robert, who worked constantly, Cynthia took it upon herself to make sure her sons were involved in sports at a young age, an effort to give them structure. She helped create, and was the president of, the Cobras little league football team, which McClure started playing for at age 4 or 5.

“I knew in order for me to help them to become strong men they would have to become educated and respectful and that would come about with putting them in things they were interested in, like football and basketball,” Cynthia said.

“I love my family and I love my lady, but there’s no love quite like my dude,” says McClure of his son, Kade (pictured here with Karagan Corthell). (Courtesy of Karagan Corthell)

She wanted to build their character and keep them off the streets, McClure said, but neither he nor his mom ever imagined it would lead him to professional baseball. He started playing around 8 or 9, but he was always involved in football, too. It was clear he was athletically gifted, Cynthia said, but that was natural in their family. His older brother, DeShone, played for Central Arkansas and later for the Texas Legends (the Dallas Mavericks’ NBA Development League affiliate) in 2014.

It wasn’t until McClure showed up for a baseball game his junior year of high school and saw roughly 40 scouts in attendance that he and Cynthia realized how good he really was. At first, he assumed they were there for someone else, but his coach assured him they were all watching him. And they kept coming back, until he was eventually convinced the MLB draft was an option.

“I don’t know how many hands I shook those days,” Cynthia said. “One scout would leave and another would be right behind him.”

McClure, an outfielder, garnered a lot of attention locally and nationally at the time. He was named to the All-Arkansas high school baseball team twice and earned a spot on the 2012 Louisville Slugger preseason high school All-America team, as well as making the Rawlings high school All-America second team and Rawlings All-Southeast Region first team.

For a teenager who’d always envisioned going to college, and a mom who preached the importance of continued education, the realization that going pro was an option meant another plan had to be drawn up. If McClure was drafted, Cynthia told him to seize the opportunity, but she expected him to obtain his college degree at some point. So when the time came to nail down the details with Cleveland, the McClure family made sure there was a clause in the contract ensuring his education would be paid for if baseball didn’t work out.

“It was very important to my mom,” said McClure, a communications major. “Not a lot of people from my family have graduated from college, neither one of my parents did, and my brother’s still working on his. That piece of paper takes you a long way. It clears some boundaries for you. I can’t play sports for the rest of my life. I’m getting older as it is, so I need that paper.”

Sitting in his parents’ living room in June 2012, the 18-year-old McClure felt dangerously close to fainting. He heard what the voice on the phone had just said to him and knew it must be real because his family was celebrating, but he was in shock.

“Is this real?” McClure asked Cynthia.

“Yeah, it’s real,” she told him. “All your hard work is paying off.”

McClure, a two-sport athlete out of Jacksonville High School who was already committed to playing baseball for the Razorbacks, had just been drafted by the Indians in the fourth round of the MLB Draft.

“It was surreal, and not really something I can explain with words,” McClure said. “It was just a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and I don’t have any regrets. I enjoyed it. Baseball taught me life. I had to grow up, and I learned to through baseball, really.”

McClure hit .219 and played in 108 games in the low minors over the next four years, but he ultimately wasn’t able to turn his raw baseball skills into success on the field.

As a teenager out on his own for the first time in places where he had no family members, McClure had to grow up fast while playing baseball. He didn’t know how to cook or what groceries to buy, regularly seeking advice from his mom.

Cynthia McClure keeps her son’s rookie card in her bag at all times. (Courtesy of Cynthia McClure)

Cynthia raised her sons to be strong and independent, but she and D’Vone always shared a special bond. During the four years he was away from home, she prayed for him continually, called daily and sent him inspirational videos and scripture passages.

It would have been natural for McClure to think his career path was going to be a straight line from the minors to the majors, but he knew better than to think it would be that easy. He’s always thought one step ahead in life, something his mom instilled in him and his three older brothers at a young age, so when he was cut by Cleveland on April 4, 2016, he sprang into action.

Five days after the end of his baseball career, McClure was in Fayetteville meeting with Bielema, then the Arkansas coach, and two and a half weeks later he committed to the Razorbacks as a walk-on after also garnering interest from the Arizona Wildcats.

In the span of three weeks McClure’s life was uprooted and put on a different path, but he felt like it was the right time to put his baseball dreams behind him. “It wasn’t really fun for me anymore.”

It was the kind of sudden life change his mom had been preparing him for since his childhood, making he and his brothers set goals and mapped out plans to achieve them from a young age. He was prepared, and his reaction to being cut was swift, something Cynthia was proud to see.

“D’Vone never ceases to amaze me,” Cynthia said. “He has not changed. Being drafted did not change him one bit.”

McClure made it to Fayetteville in 2016, but his journey hasn’t gotten any less complicated or interesting since.

He stepped away from football in 2017 after one season with the Razorbacks. He said he was retiring, but he missed competing so much that he approached coach Chad Morris when he was hired the following year and rejoined the team.

During his year away from the program, McClure remained in school and took up coaching youth baseball. He started off as a hitting coach, and he currently coaches a local youth team, the Arkansas Blazers. Even though he’s back on the field, McClure is still paving a path for his future after football. As a communications major, he’s eager to learn how to be an effective leader and communicator so he can be a better coach when his athletic career ends.

“I’ll be honest with you, they went from terrible to pretty good this first year,” McClure said, clearly proud of his team. “I think we got up to like nine or eight in the state and went up to the state tournament and forgot how to play baseball, but that’s OK. It’s a passion of mine. It’s something I want to do for a long time. After football, I definitely want to coach baseball, but I just got into it because I love it. I had an opportunity back home because there weren’t a lot of people who taught the game, so I felt like for where I went I didn’t need to do it, but I wanted to do it to give back to the city.”

Having baseball in his life again gives McClure an escape when football gets too stressful, but it also adds to his long list of responsibilities. Not only is he a student, baseball coach and football player, but he’s also a boyfriend and a father.

While in Arizona on an official visit during his three-week transition from baseball to football, McClure met Karagan Corthell through a mutual friend. They hit it off, and when McClure left for Arkansas, the pair kept in touch. By February 2017, Corthell, a nurse, had moved to Fayetteville to be with McClure.

“I’ve never met anybody that likes to talk on the phone as much as he does, but it was a nice surprise,” Corthell joked. “We just started talking and never quit.”

While McClure sat on the team bus headed back to Fayetteville after the Razorbacks’ 38-0 loss to Missouri last season, his phone lit up with a text from Corthell. It was her birthday, and she wanted to make sure he wasn’t planning on stopping to pick up a cake.

What she wouldn’t tell him until a few minutes later was that the real reason she wanted him to hurry home was that she’d gone into labor while putting up the Christmas tree. Corthell didn’t want to freak him out, but she was getting the feeling she needed to get to the hospital immediately.

As soon as the bus parked, McClure pushed past his teammates and sprinted to his car, pausing only to answer a call from Corthell. She couldn’t wait for him anymore. She was driving herself to the hospital and he should meet her there, she said. McClure pulled into the parking lot a minute before Corthell arrived, and the next morning they welcomed their son, Kade, into the world.

“He’s just my guy. I have never experienced anything like it,” McClure said. “It’s real love. I love my family and I love my lady, but there’s no love quite like my dude.”

McClure’s mother insisted that D’Vone go back to college to get his degree if he chose to play baseball out of high school. (Courtesy of Cynthia McClure)

McClure’s life is a balancing act that sets him apart from his teammates in a number of ways, but he relishes the different facets of his weekly routine. He’s loved football nearly his entire life, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to keep competing, but he also still has a soft spot for baseball and the kids he coaches.

And at the end of the day, he gets to come home to Corthell and Kade, who tries his best to stay awake until he sees his dad.

“I feel like he loves that we have a child and a house, and he also loves that he gets the other side of things — ball and school,” Corthell said. “Somehow, he just makes it all work, and this is his norm even though it’s not really the norm.”

(Photo of D’Vone McClure: Michael Wade / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)