49ers S withdraws request, to remain Donte ‘Whitner’
As was reported earlier, San Francisco 49ers’ safety Donte Whitner was to have the fate of his name change request decided by the Cuyahoga County Probate Court on Tuesday afternoon.
Well, it appears Whiter withdrew his application rather than go through with the change to “Hitner”, according to Cam Inman of the San Jose Mercury News.
Whitner filed the official paperwork for the change back on October 8th, according to CSN Bay Area, a couple of weeks after being fined for a hit on St. Louis Rams wide receiver Chris Givens – for which he was fined $21K by the NFL.
Whitner explained his thinking at the time:
"“If you ask fans around San Francisco and the Bay Area, they call me Donte Hitner anyway,” Whitner said on Oct. 2, according to Matt Maiocco at CSN Bay Area. “I think it’s pretty cool. Everything we do is for the fans, right? We all understand that. It’s entertainment, but at the same time it’s what I do. It’s my game, along with some things that happened recently, that’s why I went with it.”"
If Whitner were to have gone through with the name change, he would have had to purchase all the Nike-made jerseys with “Whitner” emblazoned on them before he could put “Hitner” on his back.
Now, it’s all moot. Whitner it is.