Chris Bosh, the face of Toronto's struggling NBA franchise, is being cast in U.S. court documents as a deadbeat father who broke up with his girlfriend when she was seven months pregnant, leaving her destitute and without medical care even as she fell ill.Bosh is the last NBA player you'd suspect of this sorta thing, which just goes to show how little we fans know about the players we cheer for. He comes from a family of two parents who are both engineers. A great student in high school, he had his choice of schools that he could have attended on an academic scholarship. He was a graphic design and computer imaging major during his brief one year stay at Georgia Tech. He hired his college-educated cousin to run his "foundation" and other various business endeavors.
The court documents, filed in Maryland on behalf of Bosh's former live-in girlfriend, Allison Mathis, who is seeking child support and sole custody, allege that in early 2008 Mathis and Bosh planned to get married. According to the filings, whose allegations have been denied by Bosh, they made a consensual decision to have a child together and Bosh, who is earning a salary of $14.4 million (U.S.) this season, paid for a fertility drug to hasten the process. Not long after Mathis conceived – at last year's NBA all-star weekend in New Orleans, according to a sworn affidavit signed by Mathis – the couple moved into a jointly owned $1.6 million home in Frisco, Tex.
But upon Bosh's return from the Beijing Olympics in August of last year, the player signalled his intention to, according to the complaint, "move on" from the relationship. With Mathis seven months pregnant it is alleged Bosh stopped supporting her financially and attempted to have her removed from their home. Without money to pay for her obstetrician appointments, let alone a means of transportation to attend them, Mathis, according to the documents, suffered "breakthrough bleeding and a constantly upset stomach" while utility companies threatened to disconnect her electricity, gas and water.
Mathis, 28, met Bosh in 2005 and was a hard-to-miss courtside fixture for most of the previous couple of seasons. Once a personal chef to the Dallas Cowboys, according to the filings, she was for a while Bosh's near-constant companion. The complaint against Bosh speaks of Mathis's bleak existence since she left the couple's Texas home last summer. "(Mathis's) expenses are mounting both for her and (Trinity), but she has no way to satisfy these obligations," it states. "(Mathis) has asked (Bosh) to assist with these expenses, but he has failed and refused to do so ... (despite) his overwhelming ability to do so."
According to the filings, Mathis returned to the Maryland suburbs of Washington, where she had grown up, to live with her mother in a two-bedroom apartment; was admitted to hospital due to complications in the pregnancy; and delivered the baby by emergency C-section on Nov. 2. Four-month-old Trinity Meyers Mathis, according to the documents, has laid eyes on her father but twice, both times in his hotel room, once when the Raptors were in town to face the Wizards.
He's always noted by beat writers as one of the most well-read, well-spoken players in the league, as well as one of the few guys well-adjusted enough to likely succeed in life had he not grown to nearly 7 feet. He's got an extremely popular channel of viral videos on YouTube, and is one of the few athletes who actually updates his own Twitter. From the way he's presented, he's the ideal NBA player, the sort of guy you'd like your own son to be should he be fortunate enough to make the league someday. He is quite simply one of the most well-rounded personalities in all of sports.[1]
However, this story just goes to show that book sense and common decency don't go hand in hand. Seriously, what guy goes through the trouble of getting a woman pregnant via fertility drugs, then abandons her and the baby, leaving them without shelter or medical care in the 3rd trimester? Worse, what sorta guy then doesn't bother going to see said child until after paternity has been proven, and even worse, once it fits his convenient travel schedule? That is just sad, sad, sad.
Seeing as how they needed fertility drugs to conceive, it's fair to say that this young lady had problems getting knocked up the natural way. Sure, it could also be due to a male factor, but either way they wanted to get pregnant. To contest the paternity of the child after such an ordeal is just really, really janky. Before anyone jumps on me and says "hey, what about her, why can't she get a job?", consider the scenario. She was in the 3rd trimester of what was likely a very delicate pregnancy. Mathis maybe shouldn't have put all her literal eggs in one basket and quit her Day Job, but who can blame her for having done so? If a guy buys you a huge ring, builds a house with your name on it, and asks you to go through lots of trouble to have his baby, that sure sounds like a commitment to me.
Unlike most stories of this ilk, I'm convinced that Mathis isn't anything even close to a gold digger. I am however quite convinced that Bosh is a total a-hole. Seriously, who only goes to the see the child he hoped and prayed for when he just happens to be playing a team in the baby's hometown? That is just awful.
Sure, we don't know the full story. These are just allegations. Mathis might be a real itch-bay. She might have actually gotten pregnant by Jermaine O'Neal, not Bosh. She might have extorted some money from him like Shaq's wife did. She might have given him an STD. But I seriously doubt it. One thing she did do was cost the Raptors a game when she infamously heckled Lebron James.
Go sit down!
That aside, much like a very similar recent paternity case involving the Orlando Magic's Dwight "Superman" Howard, I totally side with the ladies on this one. Pay up, fools!
If you don't wanna have babies, stop going raw (or going specimen), fellas.
Question: Will these ballers ever learn? What sorta man only bothers seeing his daughter when it's convenient to him? Is this just further evidence that all rich and horny people should have themselves fixed?
Raptor Bosh a deadbeat dad, lawsuit says [TheStar]
[1] Unlike, say, Gilbert Arenas, whose primadonna act is clearly a plea for attention.
