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Donald Sterling is the most contemptible man in pro sports, and that's saying something. As if the scales of moral judgment weren't already tipped enough, Gery Woelfel of the Racine (Wisc.) Journal Times presents the latest in the Los Angeles Clippers' owner's evil.
In 2004, assistant coach Kim Hughes was diagnosed with prostrate cancer. Surgery was needed. But there was a problem.
"I contacted the Clippers about medical coverage and they said the surgery wouldn't be covered," Hughes said. "I said, 'Are you kidding me?' And they said if they did it for one person, they'd have to do for everybody else."
Because everybody needs cancerous tumors extracted from their prostrate. Nothing as pleasant as elective prostrate surgery!
The story's only unbelievable if you are unfamiliar with Donald Sterling's story of rags to riches to Satanism. The man has been sued by the federal government for discriminating against minorities in his real estate properties, has a reported coterie of young women under his employ (several of which have filed sexual harrassment lawsuits over the years) and was accused of flat-out racism by NBA legend and longtime Clippers GM Elgin Baylor. And this is to say nothing of the way he runs his team, which includes being rather cheap considering his franchise's elite revenue streams, heckling his own players during games and firing coaches by press release.
There's a positive resolution to Hughes' story. Mike Dunleavy, the Clippers' head coach at the time, mentioned Hughes' plight to the players. Corey Maggette, Elton Brand and others covered the $70,000 in medical bills. Hughes later went on to serve as the team's interim head coach when Dunleavy was fired (by press release) midseason. At the end of that season, the Clippers didn't address Hughes' future, so he continued to work through the offseason, until the franchise decided to tell him they'd be hiring a new coach. I wonder why the Clippers have a dark cloud following them? Weird.
3 comments
Comments
$70,000 is nothing to a billionaire like Donald Sterling. Even if he didn’t want to do it, you’d think he’d at least have PR reps in his ear telling him that it’d play well to the general public. So basically, Sterling is not only a terrible person, but isn’t all that concerned that people know about it either.
Whenever people say that the NBA is rigged for the big markets, I always point out the existence of Donald Sterling and James Dolan. Those are pretty big roadblocks for that conspiracy theory.
Inhistoric -- the SB Nation blog devoted to sports history.
by ZombieMonta on Mar 15, 2011 3:14 PM EDT reply actions
Do your research
the reason that the clippers didn’t cover the procedure was because Hughes chose to use a doctor outside the clippers coverage plan. This is the same exact thing that would to anyone that at any company if they chose to use a different doctor then the one provided by the company, this is not a clippers or DTS problem it is problem with the way health insurance is structured in the USA. Not to say that DTS isn’t evil in other ways, but this is not one of them.
Source ESPN LA
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/news/story?id=6220206
“But he wasn’t covered under my insurance plan,” Hughes told ESPNLosAngeles.com. "We had a certain group of doctors we could go to. So if I elected to use him, it’d be out of my pocket. "
Also on a more positive note, Kim Hughes didn’t have to pay for the surgery because the players stepped in and donated money out of their pockets to help Kim out (source is the same article).
"It's better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right"unknown
by bestclipfan on Mar 15, 2011 6:27 PM EDT reply actions
Cancer of the 'prostrate'?
that’s the worst kind man!
by Matt.Brown on Mar 16, 2011 10:29 AM EDT reply actions
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