LOS ANGELES — I told UCLA’s Devin Kirkwood he reminded me of Santa Claus and he knocked that down quick, like, c’mon now, the St. Nick comp is too much.
“Nahhh, I’m not like Santa Claus,” he said. “I’m just here to help out.”
OK, but hear me out: Kirkwood has a drive to deliver as many toys – new and unwrapped, please – to as many kids as he can.
This will be the fourth year that the senior cornerback is doing a toy drive in his hometown of Inglewood, drumming up donations and collecting Barbies and Hot Wheels and – his favorite – Pokémon for less fortunate families in his hometown of Inglewood.
These drives are getting bigger by the year, he said, which means he expects more than 100 kids to drive off again with a new toy or two on Dec. 14, when Kirkwood’s idea of a good combine will be pairing a skills camp with a toy drive at Caroline Coleman Stadium.
“It’s so funny to see him do it,” his mom Kimberley Kirkwood said. “He’ll talk to the kids: ‘Do you want this toy?’ ‘Do you want that one?’ ‘Don’t you want to get two?’ He gets very excited about it.”
He’s an excitable guy, “a kid that you hear him before you see him,” UCLA coach DeShaun Foster said. A prototypical “energy guy,” as Bruins quarterback Ethan Garbers put it. The guy who’ll dance his way through warmups, and who, “if you want to change the energy in the room, he’s the type of person who knows how to liven up a room,” Kimberley said.
A nice guy, a regular on the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll, a graduate already with a degree in African American studies. Someone who funnels NIL earnings toward those who are less fortunate.
Who recruits his football pals – former and current Bruins Carl Jones Jr. and Evan Thomas, and former Trojan-turned-Cornhusker Ceyair Wright among them – to help out. Who last summer got a surprise visit from Foster, who arrived unannounced at Kirkwood’s camp, bringing good tidings and advice for the kids: “Same way y’all compete on the field, the same way y’all gotta compete in the classroom.”
Initially, when Devin was a little guy, football felt like punishment. He would have preferred just to stay home, he said, but his mom brought him to the park to sign him up for basketball and a man spotted the boy hanging onto his mom’s skirt, suggesting he play football. You know, to “break him out of being a mama’s boy.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with him being a mama’s boy,” Kimberley shot back. Still, she signed him up, and football worked out nicely for the kid who coaches took to calling D-Nice.
The game grew on him as he did. He would star at Junipero Serra High School, developing into a 6-foot-3 four-star recruit, with size and speed, a sincere work ethic, and heart, of course.
He chose UCLA, where Kimberley, a college and career counselor at Inglewood High School, earned her first degree before earning a doctorate in educational leadership from USC to go with another pair of master’s degrees. As a Bruin, Devin has been a mainstay in the secondary, including starting nine games in 2022 before suffering a wrist injury that ended his sophomore season and threatened his playing career.
“He went through a big point of depression,” Kimberley said. “Because he never had an injury of that magnitude … so he had a long time to reflect on life and, I guess, his purpose.”
Good and bad timing, the injury. Because Devin had just started his nonprofit, the Devin K. Kares Foundation.
“He wasn’t playing, so he’s thinking, ‘Does anybody care who I am?’,” she said. “He really could have stopped and not done his toy drive, but he still did it. And I was really proud of him, he still showed up with his cast on and signed autographs.”
Getting an autograph from or picture with the TikTok dude who plays football at UCLA is a really big deal for those kids – and for Devin.
“It’s fun to me because I get to meet kids that look up to me. And you know, that’s – that’s not like a…” he pauses. “It means a lot to a lot of people, and especially to me, because when you’re meeting somebody that looks up to you, then when you’re in your lowest moments, it’s like, ‘Dang. I can’t never slack because I got somebody looking up to me. They wanna see me be my best.’ So I’ve gotta always perform. I always gotta get better, I got uphold that image that they have from me.”
That give-and-get will continue, he said, after Saturday’s season finale against Fresno State and if he finds a job in the NFL, as he hopes. And long after that too.
“Yes, still,” he said. “It’s mandatory.”
He’s been inspired by his cousin, Kevin Kelley, a businessman and attorney who donates clothing and dinners every year to families in need. And by Kimberley, who is his why,’ his “rock.” His mom, who for years has been operating her own nonprofit, Dare 2 Believe 2 Achieve 4 Success, through which she educates and empowers families of aspiring college athletes.
“You think your children are not listening to you, but they’re actually listening,” Kimberley said. “And to hear him repeat half the stuff I said, sharing some of the jewels I’ve imparted on him growing up, the importance of going to school, the importance of studying and being a good citizen. It’s like, ‘Wow, he was actually listening.’”
He’s no Santa then, but Devin Kirkwood absolutely is his mother’s boy.
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