Hold on to your jerseys -- Donte Whitner isn't changing his name after all
Hope you didn't already pre-order your "€œDonte Hitner" 49ers jersey, because, as it turns out, Donte Whitner likes his name just fine how it is.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco safety has withdrawn the name-change request he previously filed in an Ohio court.
Previously, Whitner said he wanted to legally become "€œHitner" in response to unnecessary roughness penalties in back-to-back games, including one on the touchdown-saving hit below (via SB Nation), which earned him a $21,000 fine:
It's unclear why Whitner had the change of heart regarding his name, but there's a thought that he may have decided it simply wasn'€™t worth the cost he would have been forced to take on to buy up all of Nike's leftover "Whitner" jerseys.
In any case, Whitner doesn't seem to have totally closed the door on the idea, based on this tweet the 2012 Pro Bowl selection sent out Tuesday afternoon:
So actually, on second thought, maybe hold onto that "Hitner" jersey for a few more months. Just in case.