WitP: Davone Bess holding on to #15

Davone Bess talks to Mike Berardino of the Sun-Sentinel about why he won't give up his number 15.

Bess told me today he has no plans to give up the number he took when he reached the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2008. It doesn’t matter that he’d never worn the number before — not in college or high school or anywhere else.

Doesn’t matter that the number isn’t among his tat collection.

It’s what that number represents to him after overcoming a difficult upbringing in Oakland to achieve his dream and catch 130 passes his first two NFL seasons.

“It’s been a long journey, and I just feel like I had to start from ground zero with that number,” Bess told me. “It’s just a lot deeper than what it seems to be. … For me to go through what I went through with that number, it speaks measures. … It meant I overcame a lot and I’m still trying to overcome more. I’m my own biggest critic. I’m just trying to get better and better and better.”

Bess and a friend back in Hawaii, where he starred in college, are producing T-shirts with images of Bess, the Aloha and Sunshine states and, of course, the No. 15. Proceeds will benefit Bess’s newly formed charity, which also will prominently feature the No. 15, although it’s still in the name-selection process.

“That’s just me,” Bess said. “I think that’s a [sign] of my character, period. Everything isn’t about money. Obviously whatever he offered me would have been great money. I could have definitely used it. But with me some things are deeper than just the materialistic things.”