POMPANO BEACH, Fla. » The story never loses its wonder as he tells it: He made a mistake. He got a 15-month sentence. He lost his college scholarship. He kept working, kept believing behind bars and sent recruiters video from prison games.
He walked on at the University of Hawaii. He set school records. He was projected to be drafted in the second round, wasn’t drafted at all and walked on all over again, this time to the Dolphins. He became their leading receiver.
He’s now signed a million-dollar contract.
"Did you ever lose hope?" a student at Blanche Ely High School was asking Davone Bess on Tuesday morning.
"That’s a good question," he said, then repeated it to the few hundred other students sitting in the auditorium. "She wanted to know if I ever lost hope. And you know what? I never did.
"I knew something good was out there for me if I kept working."
He’s the story we don’t tell enough in this crazy sportswriting business. We don’t tell the players’ real story. Oh, we tell their real football story. We tell what they can do for an offense. We tell how they can make you cheer.
But when it comes right down to it, the best thing players have to sell is their story of hard work and harder odds that got them to the top of this mountain. Bess is taking his story to the front lines now.
"What was the hardest part?" another student was asking.
"Jail," he said. "Being locked in a cell 23 hours a day."
In the front row are 20 students from two service organizations at Ely High. They have white T-shirts that say "Bess Friends" on the front and "Taking Positive Steps Every Day" on the back.
The kids are part of a mentoring group Bess has started in eight Broward high schools. Students in each school will be paired with kids in eight elementary schools. They’ll meet at least once a week. The idea is as simple as it sounds: Older kids help younger kids grow up. And vice versa.
"I could’ve used more help," Bess said.
He was every at-risk statistic out there. A single-parent kid. A deadbeat-dad kid. An urban kid. A low-income kid. A black, male kid. When friends phoned in his east Oakland neighborhood needing a ride one night, he gave it to them, even though they had stolen goods and a voice inside warned him away.
The voice then became a siren. And an arrest. And what seemed a life sentence. As the driver, Bess became the only one to serve time. Fifteen months. He turned 18 behind bars. He lost his scholarship to Oregon State.
"Were you scared?" a student asks.
"Very scared," he said. "It was the worst time of my life. But I set goals. I wrote in a journal with Plan A, B, C, D, and read those plans every day."
He’s standing on the side of the stage after his talk now. It’s a talk he’ll be giving in other Broward schools coming up. His message involves seven steps like: It’s all about perspective. Everything happens for a reason. Live in the now.
Cliches. But they become cliches for a reason. Bess believed in them enough to survive his mistake, walk on at Hawaii, overcome not being drafted and work himself into a vital role in the Miami offense.
Sports are the rare way out. The Ely principal, Karlton Johnson, saw his dream stop in the Vancouver Grizzlies’ training camp. He just applied their lessons in another direction.
At some point, all of Bess’ disadvantages became advantages. His story never grows old in the telling. As he waits to leave the school, a student approaches hesitantly, thanks him and says something about hope.
Bess shakes the student’s hand, glad his message is received, glad someone perhaps was helped.
"I am the definition of hope," he said.
