Pro football Player Demario Davis won his appeal with the NFL, and will not not have to pay a fine for wearing a ‘Man of God’ headband. But there’s a lot more to the story.
The New Orleans Saints football player was fined $7,017 by the NFL but has turned the incident into a fundraising opportunity for a local hospital.
Davis’s wallet will still be $7,017 lighter, though, as he pledged to donate the amount of the original fine to St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. One hundred percent of subsequent sales of the headband, which also come in “Woman of God” and “Child of God” versions, are also benefiting the hospital.
The linebacker posted on instagram: “So far, we’ve raised over $30,000 for them from the headbands!!” “That means y’all helped me turn a $7,000 negative into an almost $40,000 positive benefiting people who truly need it!!! I can’t thank ya’ll enough either. I’m truly blessed as anybody.”
Davis wore the headband for three weeks before catching the eye of NFL officials, who maintained the headband violated its policy of “personal messages” on uniforms.
After receiving the fine, Davis, founder of the faith-based Devoted Dreamers Foundation, announced he would no longer wear the headband.
Davis suggested he wasn’t aware of the policy and admitted he didn’t want to lose the money adding “but I think any time that the conversation about God is brought up, especially in these times, I think it’s always a positive or silver lining.”