MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Of the thousands of West Virginia University students taking part in this weekend's commencement exercises at the WVU Coliseum, Bruce Irvin is easily the most unlikely one to walk up to the dais and get a hug and a selfie from President E. Gordon Gee before being handed his diploma.
 
That's because Irvin once walked a knife's edge between two pools of fire - one destined to see him spend the rest of his life in prison and the other seeing him die.
 
It was an either-or proposition.
 
The full story of Irvin's adolescence leading into adulthood while growing up in Atlanta can be read here, The Things I've Done, in Bruce's own words.
 
Here is the CliffsNotes version.
 
Bruce, known then as B.J, was hanging out with the wrong crowd, and it eventually caught up to him. During his junior year, he basically dropped out of school to run the streets.
 
At 17, he spent a couple of weeks in the DeKalb County Jail for breaking into a house and when he was released, his stepfather told him to pack his bags and get out because he was no longer welcome in his home.
 
From there, Bruce bounced around from house to house, eventually hooking up with a crew of drug dealers. One day, after playing some video games, he decided to make a run to the local convenience store. When he returned, the entire street was barricaded and the police had the house where he was staying surrounded.
 
Everyone in there was handcuffed, dragged out and thrown in the back of a squad car. Had Bruce hung around just a little bit longer he would have been one of them, headed for a life in prison.
 
Watching his guys getting pulled out one by one made him turn around and go in the other direction as far away from that place as he could get.
 
"One of the defining moments in my life," Irvin recalled.
 
Not knowing what to do next, Bruce remembered a guy who had unsuccessfully tried to get him to try out for the local prep school football team. Irvin eventually hooked up with him on Facebook, and the guy told him that Ware Prep was a place he could go and play. It had dorms and a safe place to sleep - something Irvin hadn't experienced since he was kicked out of his house.
 
So, in the fall of 2007 Irvin was ready to change his life. He hadn't played football since ninth grade but he was ready to unleash all of his pent-up fury, get a college scholarship and play pro football.
 
"My goal was to get to the NFL," Irvin said.
 
Then, just before the team was about to play its first game, the school closed down. Nobody took the time to tell the kids.
 
Once again Bruce was back out on the street with an uncertain future and nowhere to go. He sat on the front steps of the dorm, the windows now all busted out, with a black trash bag filled with everything he owned sitting next to him. All he could do was cry.
 
And cry. And cry.
 
He had hit rock bottom.
 
A person walking down the street saw him sobbing and asked if he was okay. Bruce wasn't and he unloaded on him, telling his entire sad story - all of the mistakes he made, the reasons he made them and how desperately he wanted to do something else with his life.
 
"I don't know what I'm gonna do, man. I ain't got nowhere to go," Irvin said.
 
The guy, Chad Allen, listened and said he would help him. The first thing he did was call Bruce's mom to tell her that he was taking him in. He fed him, bought him some clothes and arranged for Irvin to take his GED, which he passed on the first try.
 
"I was like, 'Damn, maybe I'm not as dumb as I thought," Irvin recalled.
 
He wasn't.
 
They put together a highlight tape of Bruce working out and eventually they found a place for him to play - Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California. Here he lived on ramen noodles and whatever else he could scrounge together for dinner, but it was far better than what he was used to back in Atlanta.
 
Once again, his journey almost ended at Mt. SAC when he couldn't afford to pay an additional $3,700 that he needed for tuition. But once more, fate intervened and he was able to come up with the money.
 
"I almost got kicked out," he said.
 
After two years at Mt. SAC, he played well enough to get interest from USC and LSU, but he wanted to go to a place where he wouldn't get swallowed up just like he did when he was growing up in Atlanta.
 
What he needed was a little slice of heaven, so he chose Almost Heaven - West Virginia.
 
The Mountaineers' 2010 season opener against Coastal Carolina was the first time Bruce's mom had seen him play a football game since he was a ninth grader right before everything went haywire. Two successful years at WVU opened the biggest door of his life - the National Football League.
 
Irvin was a surprising first-round draft choice of the Seattle Seahawks, where he played four seasons and was a member of a Super Bowl championship team in 2014 before signing a free agent contract with the Oakland Raiders.
 
He has since become one of the better defensive players in the league. The NFL's website recently named Bruce among its top 100 returning players for 2018, and last December, he was named Oakland's Walter Payton Man of the Year for his community service.
 
Now, with more money in his pocket than he could ever acquire illegally and a nice place to live, the only thing left for Bruce to do was earn his college degree - the first person from his family to do so.
 
He checks that box off this weekend.
 
"He's so proud of being from West Virginia University," Annelie Schmittel, who is in charge of player engagement for the Raiders, said Wednesday. "He always refers to Morgantown as 'home.'"
 
Schmittel and Bruce caught a red-eye flight Thursday to be in Morgantown for Saturday's ceremony. Irvin sat down with our Tony Caridi earlier today to tell his story once more - a story of hope and perseverance instead of one of poor decisions and failure.
 
"By telling my story I hope it gives others a sense of hope," he said. "(Earning his sociology degree) means a lot to me because it confirms that I beat the odds. I've accomplished another goal in life."
 
He said about 15 to 20 of his family members will be in Morgantown to help celebrate his unimaginable accomplishment.
 
Each time when it looked like he had nowhere else to turn, Bruce never gave up, never gave in or quit believing in himself. Today, he has the same piece of paper that every West Virginia University graduate cherishes: a degree.
 
Plus, he's got one hell of a story to tell of how he got it … and how much it means to him!