The number you wore for ten years will be on someone else’s back next season. The number was never the point.

Symbols get mistaken for the thing they stood for. Years of early mornings and hard games attached themselves to two digits, so watching somebody else wear them feels like handing over something personal. The work was never in the fabric. It is in your legs and your habits, and nobody can be issued those.

If something you identified with is passing to someone else, name what you actually built while you had it. Say it in plain words rather than modestly. Then take that to the next place, where the number will be different and the person will not be.