Holyfield's broke? How did this happen?
Posted: Thursday, June 05, 2008 8:52 PM
Evander Holyfield is broke?
That’s what the Associated Press is reporting. According to the story, the former cruiserweight and heavyweight champion of the world -- who was once cannibalized by Mike Tyson and made more than $200 million during his career -- is so busted he says he can’t even afford $3,000 a month child-support payments for one of his 10 children, which are by a number of women, a couple of whom he was actually married to.
This is sad. I met Holyfield when he fought in the 1984 Olympics and signed his first contract with Lou and Dan Duva’s Main Events. He was a humble and determined kid who talked about growing up poor and being mocked by other kids when he talked about his dream of becoming a world champion fighter.
I sat ringside at some of his biggest fights, including the one during which Mike Tyson bit a hunk out of his ear. And then I watched him slide downhill, wondering why he kept fighting when it seemed that he was one of the few in his sport who had taken care to keep his financial house in order.
Now we have an answer -- he’s broke. And when you look at the estate that is going to a sheriff’s sale, it’s a little easier to understand how he got that way.
You’ve got to look at this place. It’s got a rotunda and everything. The house is 54,000 square feet. That’s almost 1¼ acres. Most people would agree that 2,500 square feet is a decent-sized house, and Holyfield’s spread is 20 times that size. He’s got 107 rooms and 17 baths? The grand entry is bigger than my entire house – or at least it looks bigger. See for yourself.
Will someone explain what the deal is with athletes and huge houses? I understand the desire to have a pool and a guest room or two, but 107 rooms? I’ve been in hotels that weren’t that big.
Back in 2005, Ira Berkow of The New York Times wrote a profile of Holyfield. (You can read it here -- and I recommend it -- but you’ll have to register.)
Here’s a description of the house:
To reach the main house from the gated entrance of Holyfield's estate, which sits on 235 acres in Fayetteville, a town south of Atlanta, visitors drive past a lake and over a hill. Holyfield built the 54,000-square-foot house in 1990, the year he first won the undisputed heavyweight title by knocking out Douglas. The $20 million house has 11 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, a bowling alley, a movie theater, huge exercise rooms and a dining room with a table large enough to accommodate 32 upholstered chairs. The enormous outdoor pool, Holyfield said, is the largest residential pool in the country.
This isn’t excess. It’s wretched excess, a monument Holyfield built to himself, marble-plated proof that he had overcome the terrible poverty in which he grew up.
He told Berkow that he likes to share his wealth with disadvantaged children:
Holyfield invites 5,000 underprivileged children to his home for a picnic and fireworks on the Fourth of July, and for Christmas he buys $50,000 worth of toys and invites hundreds of children to visit. "To see for themselves that a black man can make it, a man that came from a place like they live in," he said. "To give them hope and something to strive for."
Strive for what, bankruptcy? Or to show that even a man who made $200 million in 20-some years can back out of a lousy $3,000-a-month child-support payment?
I don’t know if his accountants and lawyers and agents tried to warn him about what was coming. Maybe they didn’t. Or maybe he just refused to listen. Or maybe he doesn’t have anyone serving him in that capacity. Most likely his self-image was built into the walls of the palace he built with money that could have kept him and his large family in comfort forever. Instead of defining himself by the size of his accomplishments, he did it by the size of his house.
What a shame.
