Father’s Day isn’t until June, but here at Machochip we felt the need to take a few minutes to give a special shout-out to the parenting exploits of former heavyweight champion and dancer extraordinaire Evander Holyfield. Evander went to court yesterday to finally settle up child support for his ten-year-old son. Was it good nature and a sense of duty that made Holyfield take care of his business? Not at all.

It was the threat of hard time.

“My client is pleased that we didn’t have to litigate,” Kessler said. “She didn’t want him incarcerated. The last thing she wanted was to be the one to ask that he go to jail. She’s glad we got it resolved.”

Kessler said the agreement was reached after the two sides spent much of the day in the courtroom, watching the judge sentence others for failing to abide by child-support orders. Irvin’s attorney had planned to ask that Holyfield be given 30 days to meet all orders in the case and be sent to jail immediately if he failed to comply.

“While Evander was sitting there and we were sitting there, people were going to jail for a lot less money than he owed,” Kessler said.

This particular court action was spurred by Holyfield’s failure to pay three straight months of child support payments over the summer, apparently because he lacked the money to do so. No wonder he wants to keep fighting. This new settlement will require Holyfield to build his son’s college fund, pay for his private schooling and reinstate his son’s health insurance.

Imagine that. Evander took his son off the health insurance. For a guy who spent a great deal of his career lecturing on the ways of the Lord, he sure doesn’t seem to have practiced much of what he preached. We salute you, Evander Holyfield. With prison time staring you in the face, you finally relented and agreed to put forward a bare minimum of effort in your duties as a dad.

What more could a young boy ask for in a role model?

Hauled back into court, Holyfield agrees to settle case [ESPN]
Image [GQ]