Fresh Loaf

It’s sad to even think that former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield stood a chance of going to jail because he was behind on child support payments to the mother of one of his children.

But that’s what Holyfield faced in Fayette County today before he paid $9,000 in back child support and promised to meet his other obligations — private school tuition, health insurance and paying for a college fund — within the month.

The agreement gets Holyfield out of legal hot water.

In the past month, Holyfield has faced a foreclosure on his 54,000 square-foot palace in Fayette County. He has also been sued for an alleged $500,000 loan that he is accused of not re-paying.

Sadder still, the 45-year-old vows he will continue boxing and become undisputed champion once again, despite the fact he hasn’t beaten a major fighter since John Ruiz in 2000.

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The thing with young professional athletes — as ESPN’s Rick Reilly notes in today’s column — is that too many of them never consider that someday the money spigot is going to be shut off. They’ll get old and retire. It’s just a law of nature. How else do you explain Evander Holyfield building a palace in Fayette County that requires $1 million a year (in 1997 dollars) just for utilities and upkeep?

The 54,000-square-foot home has 109 rooms, including 17 bathrooms, three kitchens and a bowling alley.

There will be no more big money fights for the 45-year-old Holyfield. And his financial problems — a near foreclosure and lawsuits for child support and loan defaults — made headlines last month.

TMZ reports that yet another woman — Toi Jenese Irvin — who is the mother of one of Holyfield’s sons filed a contempt motion in Fayette County yesterday because the ex-champ has not maintained health insurance for the child, has failed to pay for his private school expenses and failed to maintain a college fund.

Holyfield was one of boxing’s greatest all-time champions. He made hundreds of millions of dollars in his career, including $35 million alone for the infamous fight with Mike Tyson where Tyson chewed off a portion of Holyfield’s ear.

It’s a sad coda for Holyfield, who claims he’s not broke and only has a cash flow problem.

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It seems the “prosperity gospel” didn’t perform as advertised for former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the Fairburn resident faces foreclosure on his 109-room mansion. Also: “the mother of one of his children is suing for unpaid child support, and a Utah consulting company has gone to court claiming the boxer failed to pay back more than a half million dollars for landscaping.”

Holyfield told the AJC yesterday he’s just suffering from a little cash-flow problem.

Where’d the millions from Holyfield’s boxing career go? A big chunk apparently went to his preacher. In 2000, Holyfield’s then-wife told a divorce court that the fighter had given at least $7 million to the Rev. Creflo Dollar.

Dollar is one of the leading advocates of “prosperity gospel,” an upside-down school of Christianity, which argues that God wants you to get rich and that you’ll get particularly rich if you give obscene amount of money to your preacher. The Lear jet-riding, Rolls Royce-collecting Dollar is one of several high-rolling reverends in hot water with U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley over how they spend Holyfield’s — er, I mean, their — money.

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CLINTON: To suspend campaign for the presidential nomination Saturday; begins campaign for the vice-presidential nomination. Jimmy Carter says Obama picking her would be “the worst mistake that could be made.”

PAIN IN THE GAS: Drivers are increasingly procrastinating buying gas as prices skyrocket go up, meaning they run out more. In Georgia, taxpayer-funded HERO trucks will give a gallon or two of gas to stranded motorists, but HERO truck drivers say they’re starting to be spread too thin.

REEF MADNESS: Since our governor prioritized a fishing initiative over sustainable development or transportation relief, it would be nice if we at least had good coastal fishing in Georgia. So the DNR is sinking old ships and building artificial reefs to build fisheries up from the bottom of the food chain.

SMOLTZ: Out for season with shoulder injury. Could be career-ending, but Smoltz is famously resilient.

HOLYFIELD: Losing $10 million home in Fayette County and falling behind on child support.

I HATE THE 90s: Temperatures will start reaching the 90s today and through the weekend, combining with a code orange smog alert to make breathing unpleasant.

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Uh oh. Evander Holyfield is already changing his story. Now, he says, he did take some type of “hormone medication” for fatigue he attributes to contracting hepatitis A.

Holyfield told the AJC’s Jeff Schultz that he thinks he contracted hepatitis A by eating bad shrimp in 1995. He says he took the hormone medication briefly in 2004, but that it didn’t work and he stopped taking it.

Schultz, who has always done a stellar job covering Holyfield and the boxing world in general, also writes in today’s paper that Holyfield said he considered taking steroids back in 1988 when he decided to move up from the cruiserweight division to heavyweight and needed to add poundage. Someone high up in boxing allegedly told him: “Well, [Mike] Tyson is doing it; you should, too.”

Holyfield says he responded, “I don’t care if Tyson is doing it, I’m not.”

(more…)

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In the current issue of Sports Illustrated, there’s a very unsettling look into the investigation of an online steroid-distribution network that has implicated several pro athletes, including Evander Holyfield and John Rocker.

In Holyfield’s case, a patient named “Evan Fields” received steroids from a clinic in Columbus. On the patient file was a sticky note with a phone number. When the magazine called the number, Holyfield answered the phone.

Holyfield, one of the all-time great heavyweights, has emphatically denied using HGH (the undetectable human growth hormone that has become the steroid du jour of professional athletes), and says he has launched his own investigation. He says he suspects he knows who ordered it and will make a public statement as soon as he’s sure.

(more…)

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