Sports stars, sex and stalkers

Darryl Dawkins, the former all-star center for the NBA's Philadelphia 76-ers, has an interesting take on the Bryant case. In a 14-year career that spanned from the mid-1970s to the end of the '80s, Dawkins learned -- learned a lot -- about women. For Dawkins, who claimed to have had sex with 1,000 women during his playing days, the problem with women and professional athletes is the stalking factor. "Everywhere we went, there were ladies around," he told Salon in an interview last week. "Every guy on our teams got hit on, and it didn't matter if they were married or not, if they were a star on the team, or good-looking. If I didn't want some woman, she would offer to bring her friend along and double-team me. Sometimes, the biggest problem was getting them to leave."

Temptation is always around the corner, and a possible lawsuit, extortion attempt or child-support payment comes with every encounter. "No matter how pretty or sweet-smelling your wife or girlfriend back home was, there was always a girl on the road who was prettier, smelled sweeter, had that certain walk that made her ass pop, and knew how to come at you," Dawkins writes in his new autobiography, "Chocolate Thunder." "There are all kinds of horror stories. I heard lots of time about a girl supplying a rubber, only she's already poked holes in it. Or a guy who got a girl pregnant, and when she sued him he discovered that the name he knew her by wasn't even her real name. There are so many girls coming at pro athletes from so many different angles just looking for a meal ticket."

Even if Dawkins has no inside knowledge about the details of Kobe's case, it is instructive to consider his mindset. News reports have suggested that the 19-year-old receptionist suffered bruises on her body during her encounter with Bryant, and the prosecution will use this physical evidence to try to prove the sex was nonconsensual. "My personal opinion is that Kobe didn't rape her," Dawkins said last week. "Something was probably promised to her, and then Kobe probably changed his mind. When it was time for her to leave, she probably didn't want to go. If she has bruises, it was probably from Kobe trying to get her out of the room, not from him beating her up."

Perhaps that is a coarse analysis; perhaps it comes from a man who has issues with women. But Dawkins is hardly alone in his views about the women who love athletes too much.

Brenda Thomas, who worked as a personal assistant for Phoenix Suns all-star guard Stephon Marbury, has penned a steamy novel -- "Threesome: Where Seduction, Power, and Basketball Collide" -- based on what she saw from that vantage. She insists that Marbury was not and is not one of the players she's describing, but generally, she says, the underbelly of professional sports is both amazing and disgusting.

In an interview, Thomas recalled being at a restaurant with some NBA players for a party, and a procession to the bathroom as players were "serviced" by a groupie hanging out at the bar. "This woman was taking guys into the bathroom after they just met," Thomas says. "After a few minutes of small talk, I heard a player say to her, 'So, you want to give me some head?' and off they went. I've seen women who will get down on their knees and service the entire entourage -- four or five guys or more -- just to get to the ball player. And these women are all types: black, Latino, white, professional women, women you would describe as whores.

"These guys can have three or four women every day, that is no exaggeration," Thomas continues. "These women come at these guys from every angle, at every hour of the day and night. The NBA tries to teach these guys how to avoid trouble like this, but when you're in your 20s and a women is down on her knees in front of you, the lessons learned are really not at the forefront of your mind.

How far will women go to get close to a player? Jennifer Briggs, a Fort Worth, Texas-based writer and author who has covered sports for 15 years, found that groupies used a curious security dodge at the Dallas Cowboys training in the mid-1990s in Austin. After practice, the Cowboys players would pass by fans pressed against a fence and asking for autographs. The security guards allowed kids in wheelchairs to gain a position just inside the fence.

"I started to notice that the women with the handicapped kids were dressed in short skirts, low cut blouses, heavy-duty makeup," Briggs recalls. "The security guards referred to these women as the 'ho express,' groupies pushing handicapped kids on wheels. These women were borrowing other people's handicapped kids so they could get close to the players." Briggs says the Cowboys security detail had to put the brakes on the 'ho express, allowing only one person to accompany each child in a wheelchair, and making them prove the kid was actually handicapped.

Next Page: "Most of the [athletes'] wives coped by telling themselves that all of this is temporary"

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