The story of Miami Dolphins’ wide receiver Davone Bess’ is a story of overcoming adversity. Bess could’ve ended up a statistic, a failure, or barring those at least the sort of stereotypical troubled talent that the media frequently focuses on when covering NFL football. He didn’t end up there but through perseverance and hard work, Bess overcame one barrier after another. He now is striving to share that lesson with today’s youth, “that they too can succeed if they’re willing to work for it.”
These days, the fourth-year receiver out of the University of Hawaii is locked into his team with an eight-figure contract, is one of Miami quarterback Chad Henne’s preferred targets—currently tied for third most receptions on the team this season—and a favorite amongst DolFans. In downtown Miami, an action shot of him even blankets one side of a skyscraper. But his road to success hasn’t been an easy one.
Growing up in Oakland, California, all the trappings were built right in—gangs, violence and crime at every turn. As a kid, he saw his uncle gunned down in the street at a block party barbecue Bess’ father was hosting. Rather than turn to the dark side, Bess immersed himself in football at Skyline High School and worked hard to avoid trouble. That is, he avoided trouble until July 9, 1993, a day Davone Bess will never forget it. On that day he almost ruined everything he had worked so hard to build, when he was arrested for giving some friends, who were carrying bags of stolen goods, a ride.
“I knew what they [were] up to, and I didn’t want [any] part of it,” Bess says in NFL Films Presents Davone Best. “But I was trying to be a friend.”
Bess was hit with the maximum sentence: 13 months incarceration, during which he turned 18 and went from being a minor to an adult, which meant a transfer from juvi to jail. While there he saw the path he had paved to the NCAA evaporate.
Still Bess didn’t give up on himself. That’s one of the key messages he tries get across through the mentoring program he set up as part of his Bess Route Foundation. And it’s perhaps the very best lesson he can share.
“My high school coach would always tell me, ‘if you want something, you have to go and get it.’ And I took that to heart.”
That same former football coach helped him secure another shot at the NCAA once he’d served his time. When Bess arrived in Hawaii, he did what he’s always done—push himself to overcome the odds. During his three years there, he broke every receiving record at the school, and looked like a lock for the early rounds of the 2008 draft. However, a poor showing at the NFL Combine kept him off the board on draft day. Once more he found an obstacle in his path.
Once more, Bess rose to the challenge. He started the 2008 season with the Dolphins as an undrafted free agent. By season’s end, the walk-on had finished with the record for second most catches by an undrafted rookie. Today, well, we know how that story has gone—a big contract, a bright future full of promise and a commitment to helping others.
Through his foundation, he’s reaching out to kids, setting up mentoring programs to offer guidance to help them avoid some of the barriers he faced rather than having to fight through them alone like he did.
The Bess Route Foundation’s mission states that it came to fruition through “a simple belief that hard work breeds success in many aspects of life.” It’s hard to imagine a person who better embodies that lesson than Davone Bess.
Click here to visit the Davone Bess Foundation website.
I read a little about his foundation awhile back. Good article