"I realized it was Alexandra, and it was quite embarrassing," Erving says. She glared at Julius, said, "I don't want your autograph," and stomped away. Her prize was a personal autograph from him, and when he looked down and saw ALEXANDRA STEVENSON, Erving's exact baritone words - according to Samantha's friend, Geneva Kandel - were, "Nice to meet you, Alexandra." What he did notice was a lanky, determined little girl, diving all over the court in her Size 9 sneakers, and he chose her as one of the camp's top performers. He'd seen photos of her - Samantha would send some to the 76er offices once or twice a year - but he didn't make the connection. then stepped back to watch the fireworks.Īt first, Julius didn't recognize Alexandra. Instead, Alexandra showed up with one of Samantha's close girlfriends, who wrote ALEXANDRA STEVENSON in large block letters on a nametag. Samantha did not alert Julius because they weren't communicating anyway. Samantha's reaction was, "Are you sure?" And when Alexandra assured her she was, the wheels were set in motion. All the boys in her class were dying to meet him, and, out of curiosity, Alexandra asked Samantha if she, too, could go, if she could see her father, finally, in the flesh. But then one day, at the age of 8, she came home from school with a flier that said the recently retired Julius Erving was conducting a one-time-only clinic at the local gym. As an infant, she'd done underwater somersaults in the swimming pool, and later she excelled in soccer, gymnastics, tennis and ballet.
Instead, she was running circles around the other kids in sports. Julius elevated the game of basketball, but that only caused Alexandra to shun the sport. "But I'm not running for president," Alexandra shot back. "What's wrong? Winfield sounds presidential," Samantha said. She also began telling her mom she disliked her middle name, Winfield, and asked to switch it to Chloe or Zoe. By kindergarten, Alexandra was drawing self-portraits of herself white, and, by grade school, she was telling her mom, "The next time someone asks me who my father is, I'll say Robert Redford." Samantha suggested she think of someone else, to which Alexandra replied, "Sidney Poitier?" She also explained his identity was "nobody's business," which is how an entire cover-up began. I'm your mom, and you live with me, but it's important for you to know he loves you." He's a great person, and he happens to be a basketball player. J." She showed Alexandra a photo of a chiseled Erving, palming an ABA ball, in a New York Nets uniform, and she told her 4-year-old: "This is your father. They were an odd couple riding down busy La Jolla Boulevard - a white mom and a mixed-race toddler - and one of Samantha's angrier days was when a curious preschool teacher asked Alexandra who her father was and what he did for a living.Īlexandra didn't have a clear answer for them, and when she came home in some distress, Samantha whipped out a book titled, "The Legend of Dr. Every morning, Samantha would put a crash helmet on her 3-year-old toddler, and pedal her to the grocery store, to the beach and five miles to preschool. "We thought it was in the best interest of Alexandra."Īll mother and daughter had were each other - and a Schwinn bicycle to get them from Point A to B. "For better or worse, the parties honored it," Erving says. So she signed the contract, lived off his monthly checks and stayed in her little corner of the world: La Jolla, Calif. Samantha says she loved him and didn't want to be the cause of that. At the time, Julius was the reigning NBA MVP as a Philadelphia 76er, the good Doctor, and a paternity scandal - much less an interracial affair - could have been an image- and endorsement-killer. In fact, the terse agreement between the two parties, drawn up by lawyers, was for Samantha to live at least 200 miles away from Julius, keep the birth out of the news, receive a modest monthly stipend and have sole custody. So there was little hope of Julius ever flying Alexandra in for a visit.
In 1977, two years before her affair with Erving, Samantha had ghost-written a piece with Turquoise about life as an NBA wife for the New York Times, and, naturally, Turquoise felt betrayed. From all accounts, Erving's wife, Turquoise, was fuming over her husband's infidelities and livid at Samantha. But there it was, as plain as day, under father of child: Julius Winfield Erving II.
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The baby's full name was Alexandra Winfield Stevenson and, if Samantha had foreseen the drama ahead, she might have omitted his name from the birth certificate. Working as a sportswriter, Samantha Stevenson first met Julius Erving in the late 1970s.
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