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July 7, 2002
I want to caution readers that this is going to be a controversial entry. One of the many things that this web page stands for is excellence in the tradition of investigative journalism, even when the truths uncovered are perhaps discomforting, the facts assembled are perhaps hard-hitting, so on and so forth. Therefore, I cannot sugar-coat the following. I must break the story. I will try to give you all sides of it, though, so stay with me, and wait for the shock to subside.

On Saturday, July 6, the Associated Press published an article about accusations of assault made toward basketball star Allen Iverson. A pair of men filed charges against him, claiming that he and another man threatened them in their apartment complex. That, in itself, was not interesting to me. Apartment complexes are tough places, and people know what they're getting into when they step into one of those. Besides, threats are boring without a beat behind them, at the very least, to say nothing of some kung fu movie samples. So, fuck all that. However, one part of the article caught my eye:

(news) Citing unidentified sources, (The Philadelphia Daily News) reported that the two men said Iverson, armed with a gun, and another man went to the apartment looking for Iverson's wife and cousin. Iverson and Tawanna Turner were married Aug. 3 and have two children.

Now, I'm no biology whiz, but that struck me as curious. August 3 was eleven months ago...and pregnancy takes nine months, which gives Iverson and his wife enough time for 1.3 children, not 2. Even if both children were very premature, to the tune of six months or so in the womb, the numbers still don't add up. Do you see where I am going with this?

Allen Iverson and his wife may have had sex...before they were married.

Now, that is just one explanation. I know that many children and many adults in a state of arrested adolescence have a great deal of admiration for Iverson, who lacks the height to play the shooting guard position in the NBA but is a formidable offensive threat when teamed with a tall point guard in the back court and a pair of effective, pass-first rebounders in the front court, and I do not want to sully his character before all the facts are in. So many of our role models have fallen, and we do not need to lose another one. Here, then, are alternative hypotheses to explain the extra child:

1. Tawanna gave birth to twins. This would make the most sense, but reporters like twins, and it would be odd if the reporter did not describe the children as such.
2. The Iversons found the second child, rummaging through their trash or cracking wise while stealing their hubcaps. He was a scruffy orphan, and he won their hearts, so they adopted him. Presumably, the appropriate paperwork was filed.
3. The second child is not human. He is an extremely personable dog, or perhaps a monkey.
4. Tawanna is pregnant with the second child, and the Iversons have decided to count their chickens prior to the chickens' hatching.
5. Muggsy Bogues came in the wrong door, and all hell broke loose.

I know that the initial impulse is to tar and feather Iverson, and to brand Tawanna with a scarlet 'A'. As the man who broke this story, though, I would like to urge calm. Let me propose, Pope John Paul II, that Allen Iverson not be excommunicated just yet. Put him in queue if you must, but let us not be so quick to judge. Perhaps mistakes were made. Who among us, in our own way, has not had a second, illegitimate child, with Tawanna? Let us wait for the whole story to emerge. Let us forgive. Let the truth surprise us...and inspire us.

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