On draft day in any professional sport, the highlight reels show young athletes celebrating the beginning of their pro careers, putting on a team jersey or cap, and smiling with the league commissioner for photo ops. Often, though, the next rite of passage for a young professional athlete in America is not exactly a photo opportunity – it’s a paternity suit.
For whatever social, psychological or sexual reason, pro athletes are having children out-of-wedlock at an epidemic rate. No sport is exempt – baseball, football, basketball, boxing, hockey and more. Child support payments are some athletes’ single biggest expense. Since Father’s Day is coming up soon, we thought we’d take a look at some of the more notable professional players (pun intended) who have been parties to paternity suits.
As you might expect, the list of athletes with one or two illegitimate children is extremely long. Much too long to list here in its entirety. Highlights from that list include:
But it doesn’t stop there! The numbers get CRAZY – read below!
Then there are the guys who haven’t figured it out yet or just don’t care. The list includes these athletes with three to five illegitimate children each:
These athletes take the cake with six or more illegitimate children a piece:
And this paternity suit epidemic? Not exactly new territory for the big leagues. These guys were having illegitimate kids way back in the day:
As long as there are professional athletes, it seems that the folks who do paternity testing will always have jobs!
Legal Topics: paternity, child support, paternity testing
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