Julius “Dr. J” Erving was playing for the Philadelphia 76ers when he met Samantha Stevenson in 1976. She was a sports journalist and they soon struck up an affair, despite the fact that the NBA star was married. In 1980, Samantha gave birth to their daughter. Needless to say, Erving’s wife was not happy about the situation and all parties involved agreed the affair and the child should be kept a secret from the public. “I wasn’t in their life…but I was never a deadbeat dad. I didn’t ignore them; I tried to support them,” Erving told ESPN.
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Their daughter, Alexandra Stevenson, went on to be a talented athlete like her father, though tennis was her game of choice. At 18, she made it to the semifinals of Wimbledon and this put a new spotlight on the young tennis star. When the media got ahold of her birth certificate and it listed her father as Julius Winfield Erving II, the truth was put in print, per The Washington Post. The secret was out but it would be another nine years before Erving would meet his long lost daughter. When Alexandra was 27, she reached out to him and they’ve had a relationship ever since. “Meeting her that day for me ranks up there, really, with the NBA championship, the ABA championships, the induction into the Hall of Fame,” he said.
