A graveyard is something that is seen as desolate and depressing, not a place for fun and frolicking. But if you live near the Juniata Golf Course in Northeast Philadelphia, the idea of kids yelling and screaming in a burial ground wouldn't seem that foreign.

Especially if you are Jim and Mary Ann Devlin, and your sons Mike and Brian are goofing around with their neighbors behind your house in nearby Greenwood Cemetery.

The Devlin boys and their friends, Dennis "Beavis" Jardel and Ryan Findley, would play in the graveyard using whatever they could to make it look more like a pitch. They never played on top of any graves but were known for using tombstones as line markers.

"It was great, there were absolutely no disturbances whatsoever," Jardel said.

Brian Devlin, the youngest of the clan, has come a long way from playing around crypts and mausoleums. He now stars on the mowed and watered grass of Jeffrey Field where the closest he's come to a dead body is when he bumps into an opponent and they lie motionless -- in an attempt to draw a yellow card.

Devlin arrived at Penn State as a part of a 10-person recruiting class. One of those recruits was fellow captain of the 2005 team, David Walters.

Walters and Devlin both started right off the bat, which is an oddity for a midfield of a program as prestigious of Penn State.

"I was always confident that I would start right away," Devlin said. "I wasn't cocky or anything. I held my ground the first couple of weeks, and didn't really say much. Coach [Scott] Black said that I was shy at first, but now they can't shut me up."

Together Walters and Devlin have played in just about every game together of their collegiate career. They have also captured more Big Ten titles than any other group of seniors in Penn State history.

But Devlin's Nittany Lion career was almost buried before it began.

Before his arrival in Happy Valley, Devlin was well on his way to being a professional player. He was a recipient of a multitude of national achievements, prior to his high school graduation.

At the young age of 15, he was named to the United States' under-16 national team, and two years later he made the cut for the U-18. Someone who wanted to get the ball rolling on Devlin's pro career contacted him, but Devlin's dad made a decision that is seemingly less popular nowadays among young athletes and their families.

"We were sitting in a restaurant in Virginia, and I just told him that I would want to see him go to school. I'd like to see him have a degree to back himself up," Jim said.

There would have been no decision to make if Devlin hadn't had a chance encounter with a coach from Trinidad, Pat Moses, that propelled him to become the top midfielder he is today.

It was under the teaching of Moses that Devlin blossomed into one of the few stars to emerge from Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs.

He was a star at William Penn Charter High School in the Philadelphia Inter AC league. Devlin had his trophy case filled during his time at Penn Charter, including being a three-time Pennsylvania high school all-state selection and a Parade Magazine All-American his senior year.

While at Penn Charter, Devlin also lettered in lacrosse, a sport that seems perfect for his feisty personality. When the word lacrosse is mentioned to Devlin, his face lights up and he begins explaining at length why he loved the violent sport. He smirked when he said his favorite part is that you get to hit people when they're not looking.

"You see him on the field, he's a physical kid. When he plays lacrosse, he beats the hell out of people," Mike said.

Along with lacrosse, Brian tried track for about a minute, but quit because he found it boring. But Mike believed there was a simpler motive to his decision.

"I don't think he liked all of the running," he said, with a laugh.

Even with the multitude of achievements at Penn Charter, it was club soccer and FC Coppa that molded Devlin into the player he is today. Coppa is basically a machine for cranking out future professional and Division I college players.

Coppa proudly boasts names such as Chris Albright, who is currently a starter on the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. But its most impressive graduate is midfielder Bobby Convey, who plays for the Reading FC's of the English Premier League.

Coppa has also produced names that can be recognized by fans of just Penn State soccer. Freshman Barkley Miller and Jason Yeisley both cut their teeth on the fields of the Philadelphia Soccer Club.

"Club and high school are totally different," Devlin said. "High school soccer is a joke, pretty much. I would take it seriously, but it was mostly for fun, whereas club is really competitive."

It was during the early years of club soccer that Devlin would pick up the nickname that would follow him for the rest of his life -- Sushi.

The story goes that he arrived at practice for his club team, and the coach realized that there were too many Brians on the squad so he came up with nicknames for them.

Devlin was tagged Sushi because of his Japanese background, and because as Jim puts it, "the coach only knew two Japanese words: banzai and sushi. I think we'll take sushi." The whole family embraced the idea, or as Mike said, "we kinda had to."

"My dad became, 'Sushi's Dad' and I became 'Lil' Sushi' -- I don't know how that happened because I'm older than him," he added. "We just kept going with it."

The name kind of grew to legendary status after that. When Devlin arrived at Penn State in 2002, Penn State men's soccer coach Barry Gorman wanted the Devlin family to be the whole sushi package.

From there, the Penn State Sushi Bar was born during the 2002 Big Ten Tournament, and now it is a staple of every home game which Devlin's older brother Mike can attend.

If you've ever been to a Penn State men's soccer game then you have almost undoubtedly seen the sushi bar. Its inhabitants are Mike, Beavis and other friends and neighbors from back home. The small cheering section adds an excitement and culture to Jeffrey Field, as Mike and Beavis enjoy dressing the part of stereotypical Japan figures.

Mike dresses in a classic Shogun warrior costume, with helmet and all. And Beavis dons the garment of a Japanese peasant rice farmer, which you can identify by the cone-shaped hat with the chinstrap.

"Any time you have people that love the game, and they love watching, be it their brother, their friend, their son playing, its tremendous," Gorman said. "But they bring an energy to the game, and they also bring an understanding of the game."

The Devlins' foray into soccer began when Brian was all of 5-years-old. Jim and Mary Ann decided to sign him and his two brothers up for the Juniata youth league.

Soccer was not even on the radar screen of the American sporting landscape back in 1988 when the Devlin's made the decision, or as Jim called it with a smile, "that foreign sport." And the rest -- as the saying goes -- was history.

"From 5 years old, I can remember him running around with the soccer ball," Jim Devlin said. "That was it. He wanted to do this and nothing else."

Now that Devlin's only a few games away from the end of his Penn State career, the question is, what's next for 5-foot-6 midfielder?

"Hopefully, the MLS. Hopefully," Devlin said. "I [will] know more by the end of the season. But if not there, I'll look overseas. It's a big decision coming up, and I really don't know what it is yet."

The only stumbling block is that to be able to enter the Major League Soccer draft, Devlin would have to declare himself eligible by February, which would mean that he would have to leave school early.

But if it were up to Jim and Mary Ann, his professional soccer career can wait. The most important thing he can receive is his degree in recreation and park management.