Re: Dump this Clown

["JLyell" <jlyell@concentric.net>]

I agree. I didn't like him before, now I am sure he's a bum & not Celtic
material.

- ----------
> From: Belanger,Roger <rbelange@foxboro.com>
> To: 'Boston Celtics' <celtics@igtc.COM>
> Subject: Dump this Clown
> Date: Wednesday, June 04, 1997 6:17 AM
> 
> This article below appeared in todays Boston Globe. Let's hope with the
> new regime in place that we are not expected to cheer for clowns like
> this in a Celtic uniform for much longer. What a fine example of
> "manhood" this sack of crap is.  Rick P., if you can hear me, dump this
> idiot, I don't this is representative of Celtic Pride.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Broken home 
> 
> While Greg Minor makes millions with the Celtics, his former girlfriend
> struggles to make ends meet while raising their children
> 
> By Peter May, Globe Staff, 06/04/97 
> 
> 
> 
> The U-Haul truck left the comfortable, four-bedroom, brick and
> vinyl-sided home on Lambach Lane for the final time last week. The four
> children hugged their stuffed animals, clutched their special toys, and
> fought back tears as they and their mother also departed, leaving the
> pleasant development on the east side of Louisville, Ky., for a far
> different living arrangement in the city's rugged west end. 
> 
> 
> 
> It wasn't by choice that Celestyne Rowan and her children left. She was
> evicted. The father of three of the children, Boston Celtics guard Greg
> Minor, reneged on a deal to purchase the home, forcing the realtor to
> begin eviction proceedings and Rowan to move into her mother's cramped
> two-bedroom house in one of the city's less desirable and increasingly
> dangerous neighborhoods. 
> 
> 
> 
> Rowan had readied herself for the move ever since the eviction letter
> arrived early last month. Instead of giving the children their own
> bedrooms, she slept with them in Greg Jr.'s room for the final month,
> the better to prepare them for what was to come. Their nights now are
> spent in a smaller room where the blue paint is peeling, the ventilation
> is inadequate, the curtains hang askew, and the sole bathroom is
> downstairs. 
> 
> 
> 
> This new home is just off West Broadway, a road that knifes through
> downtown Louisville all the way to the Ohio River. As you leave
> downtown, West Broadway becomes a thoroughfare of fast-food
> establishments, pawn shops, mortuaries, and boarded-up buildings. Rowan
> remembers growing up in this part of town and sleeping on the porch
> during the oppressive Kentucky summer nights. 
> 
> 
> 
> ``You couldn't do that now,'' she said. ``You might get shot. The thing
> I can't understand is that Greg knows what this neighborhood is like. He
> has been in our house. He told me that this is the type of neighborhood
> he wanted to get away from. And yet here we are. 
> 
> 
> 
> ``The kids are pretty upset,'' she continued. ``They can't play outside.
> They can't ride their bikes. They don't know why this has happened to
> them.''
> 
> 
> 
> Rowan and the children are here because she has no money to move
> elsewhere. She and Minor have had an abuse-marred relationship for the
> last six years, a relationship that included an assault charge against
> the three-year Celtic and one that also produced three children: Kira,
> 4; Greg Jr., 3; and Khalid, 1 1/2. Rowan's oldest child, Jamaira Payton,
> is 6. She is not Minor's child but has known him as the sole father
> figure in her life. 
> 
> 
> 
> The assault charge arose out of a June 21, 1996, altercation in
> Louisville. Minor agreed to enter a counseling program for batterers in
> Boston to avoid trial on the charge. The program takes a year to
> complete. 
> 
> 
> 
> According to Rowan, who has sole custody of the children, Minor has not
> seen his family since February. He has called once since then, on Greg
> Jr.'s third birthday two months ago. Later that month, Rowan and her
> children, living on $2,000 a month in child support, were told they'd
> have to leave Lambach Lane because Minor never had taken title to the
> property and had no intention of closing the deal. 
> 
> 
> 
> In the April 30 eviction letter to Rowan, realtor Larry E. Thompson,
> whose company brokered the deal, said Minor ``willfully and
> intentionally deceived us.'' Ten months ago, Minor had placed a
> significant deposit on the property, in the area of $40,000, with the
> rest to be financed conventionally. He now will forfeit the down
> payment. Reached at his Louisville office yesterday, Thompson would not
> elaborate. 
> 
> 
> 
> Rowan's only source of income is the child support. The $2,000 amount
> was established when Minor was earning salaries of $250,000 and $325,000
> in his first two seasons with the Celtics. The figure is below the state
> of Kentucky's recommendation for child support for a family of four,
> which is $2,305 for someone earning $115,000. 
> 
> 
> 
> Last summer, Minor received a substantial pay raise, signing a
> five-year, guaranteed deal for $12.5 million, an average of $2.5 million
> per season. However, there was no automatic increase in child support
> payments. Rowan and her attorney, Maury Kommor, asked for an increase to
> reflect Minor's new salary. In February, their petition was granted and
> Minor was ordered to pay $30,000 a month. 
> 
> 
> 
> ``Although this is undeniably a lot of money,'' wrote Karen Stewart, the
> domestic relations commissioner who reviewed the case, ``it would be an
> egregious error to permit Mr. Minor to live as a millionaire while his
> children live in relative poverty.''
> 
> 
> 
> Minor appealed the decision, and the money is in escrow. Rowan,
> meanwhile, never received a check for the month of May and is two months
> behind in her bills. Tomorrow Rowan and Minor are scheduled to appear in
> Jefferson County Family Court, where a judge will be asked to rule on
> the appeal. Neither Minor nor his lawyers in Boston, Richard Snyder, or
> Louisville, Virginia Burbank, would comment for this story. The court
> papers reveal that they are challenging the increase primarily on
> procedural grounds. 
> 
> 
> 
> Celtics president-coach Rick Pitino said yesterday he was unaware of the
> situation but added, ``I'm very concerned about it. I obviously need to
> sit down and speak with him and his agent to see if I can get to the
> bottom of this.''
> 
> 
> 
> In the meantime, Rowan and the children live with her mother, Gwendolyn
> Rowan, while fending off bill collectors. Among her debts are monthly
> payments of more than $138 for a washing machine, dryer, and
> refrigerator that Minor bought on time and are now in storage. There is
> an unpaid balance of nearly $2,300 for the three appliances. Rowan has
> missed the first monthly storage bill of $140, resulting in a $25 late
> fee. Two months ago, the right rear tire on her Dodge Neon blew out
> while she was driving on the expressway, her children in the car. She
> has not replaced the tire and uses the vehicle only when she can inflate
> the damaged tire. 
> 
> 
> 
> She is responsible for the phone, food, clothing, insurance, medical
> co-payments, and all other living expenses. She never bought a bed for
> the home on Lambach Lane and, on one occasion, had to borrow money to
> buy milk. On another, she had to borrow money to keep the phone in
> service. She had to borrow money to buy Christmas presents. She has
> nothing left. 
> 
> 
> 
> ``I just hope the court does the right thing,'' Rowan said. ``Because if
> it doesn't, I don't think I can make it. I really don't.''
> 
> 
> 
> Rowan, 26, and Minor, 25, never married, nor have they lived together
> for any sustained period of time. This past December, Rowan, Khalid, and
> Greg Jr. briefly visited Minor in Waltham, Mass. They stayed in a hotel,
> and Minor joined them. It was awkward from the outset and just the third
> time Minor had seen his youngest child. The previous month, he had sent
> Khalid a $30 toy telephone for his first birthday. 
> 
> 
> 
> ``We didn't really get along well at all,'' Rowan recalled. ``It wasn't
> like it used to be. It hasn't been that way for a long time.''
> 
> 
> 
> College romance sours
> 
> 
> 
> They met during Minor's freshman season at the University of Louisville.
> He was a shy country boy from Sandersville, Ga., coming to play for
> Denny Crum's Cardinals, one of the top college programs in the country.
> She was a high school graduate with a baby. They were introduced through
> a mutual friend and were together throughout Minor's college career,
> often living in Minor's dormitory room. 
> 
> 
> 
> Their first child, Kira, was born in August 1992, after Minor's
> sophomore season. Greg Jr. was born in April 1994, just after Minor's
> final college season. Khalid was born in November 1995 at the beginning
> of Minor's second season with the Celtics. 
> 
> 
> 
> While Minor was at Louisville, Rowan went on welfare and also received
> money from her mother. Then when Minor was signed by the Celtics in
> 1994, the two worked out the child support arrangement. During that
> first year, Rowan and the children lived with Minor for three months in
> Minor's Bedford, Mass., condominium. But around Christmas, Rowan and the
> children returned to Kentucky so she could attend her grandmother's
> funeral. Minor called shortly thereafter and said he wanted to live
> alone the rest of the season. He mailed the children's belongings back
> to Kentucky. 
> 
> 
> 
> Rowan moved to an apartment in Doral Court, a complex that abuts
> Interstate 64 and is only a short drive from the more well-heeled
> Gaslite Estates, where Lambach Lane is located. Doral Court is a
> well-maintained complex with a swimming pool and tennis courts, and
> Rowan lived in a three-bedroom unit for which she paid $779 a month in
> rent. 
> 
> 
> 
> She soon had trouble paying the bills there. She never had a telephone
> installed. On more than one occasion, the landlord had to call the
> Celtics to find out when she could expect her next check. 
> 
> 
> 
> Their relationship had always been rocky, and according to Rowan, there
> had been periodic incidents of domestic violence. She never called the
> police. In the summer of 1995, the two were in a car accident in
> Louisville. Rowan, five months pregnant with Khalid, broke a bone in her
> neck and spent two weeks in traction. Her mother had to take a leave
> from her job to care for her daughter. 
> 
> 
> 
> Then, last June, Rowan was in the kitchen of her apartment, making
> macaroni and cheese with chicken. The front doorbell rang, and through
> the peephole, she saw Minor. The two had just quarreled over the use of
> Minor's Land Cruiser. She refused to let him in. Minor went around to
> the back and came in through the patio slider. 
> 
> 
> 
> An argument soon turned ugly. She says he doused her with cognac and hit
> her. The children, witnesses to it all, started crying. ``I thought he
> was going to kill me,'' Rowan said. Finally, Rowan broke free and ran to
> a phone booth some 75 yards away at the entrance to the complex and
> called her sister, asking for help. 
> 
> 
> 
> Soon police were at the complex and Minor was arrested, charged with
> fourth-degree assault, and taken away in a van. Rowan did not want to
> press charges, but Jefferson County has a ``no drop'' policy regarding
> domestic violence charges. Minor said at the time, ``Things have been
> blown all out of proportion. I know what kind of guy I am. Usually, I
> walk away from these things.''
> 
> 
> 
> At his court appearance, an agreement was reached to place Minor in
> EMERGE, a Boston counseling program for batterers. If he completes the
> program, the assault charge will be dropped. According to Kommor,
> Rowan's attorney, there was no stipulation in the agreement that EMERGE
> periodically inform the court of Minor's compliance. Minor is scheduled
> to finish the program in early August. 
> 
> 
> 
> Minor will begin his fourth professional season this fall. Under terms
> of the contract he signed, he will earn roughly $2.2 million for the
> year. (The contract started at $1.8 million and increases 20 percent per
> year.) Minor receives additional money from the NBA's licensing deals -
> around $75,000 - as well as money from Nike, his shoe company. According
> to Rowan, he also gets up to $5,000 in free clothing and shoes from
> Nike. 
> 
> 
> 
> The order being appealed is retroactive to last June 27. That was the
> date that Rowan filed the petition seeking sole custody and for an
> increase in child support. The case dragged on into February, when a
> hearing was held. According to court records, Minor never appeared,
> despite being served notice months earlier. It was then that Stewart
> ordered that the monthly payments be raised to $30,000 and gave Rowan
> sole custody. It was also then, according to sources, that any hope of
> salvaging either the relationship or the house on Lambach Lane came to a
> crashing halt. 
> 
> 
> 
> This story ran on page C01 of the Boston Globe on 06/04/97. 
> © Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.