There is an enormously poignant story about Julius Erving and his long lost daughter Alexandra Stevenson by Tom Friend as a featured story on ESPN’s award-winning show ‘Outside the Lines’. Here is the link to the script of the story, and some video highlights as well—-http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=drjandalexandra

It will show up as a TV broadcast next Sunday morning Dec. 21 at 9.a.m. on ESPN. It is a story, often sad, but also with hope and reconciliation about what happens when a celebrity commits adultery and has a child outside of wedlock, and then longs for forgiveness and reconciliation after the fact. So many have loved Dr. J through the years, and still do— witness his recent Dr. Pepper commercials. But there is another side of the man, a man who cheated on his wife of many years Turquoise, several times, and on more than one occasion it led to the birth of a child— in this case Alexandra Stevenson, a budding tennis player on the women’s circuit. What I find especially moving about this whole story is Alexandra’s willingness to forgive a father who had really no part in her life before she was 18, a father whom she still has trouble calling ‘Dad’. For you see it takes more than paternity to make a real father, a real Dad. And this case it takes real forgiveness before the 60 something Julius Erving could even begin to be a Dad to Alexandra. Read the story and see what you think.

BW3