McClellan's world is upside down
By Greg Logan / Newsday
FREEPORT, Ill. -- Gerald McClellan was in one
of his combative moods, arguing with his sister Sandra, whose turn it was to watch over
her brain-damaged brother, a former middleweight boxing champion of the world. Sandra and
sisters Lisa and Stacy, who divide each day into eight-hour shifts of shared nursing care,
had learned patience with Gerald's outbursts since he returned home from a hospital in
August, but this time Sandra put her foot down.
"Gerald threw something on the floor and told her to pick it up, but Sandra asked him
to pick it up," said Lisa, describing an incident that occurred recently. "He
told her he couldn't because he was blind."
Acknowledging that sad, simple truth poked the first hole in Gerald McClellan's wall of
denial about the severe injuries he suffered in a 10th-round knockout loss to World Boxing
Council super-middleweight champion Nigel Benn on Feb. 25, 1995, in London. For the first
time since that terrible night, McClellan admitted, "I'm blind."
The Benn fight ended with McClellan being counted out after two successive knockdowns. He
then lapsed into a coma after suffering a massive blood clot on the brain that was removed
in a life-saving 3 1/2-hour operation. McClellan remained in a medically induced coma for
11 days and was hospitalized for slightly less than six months. Lisa McClellan said test
results from the Mayo Clinic indicate Gerald suffered two strokes at the time of his
injury, and he may have had a heart attack.
Although McClellan's eyes and ears are healthy, a high percentage of brain cells that
affect eyesight and verbal comprehension are dead. As a result, he is blind and constantly
asks those talking to him to repeat themselves as if he is hard of hearing. There has been
slight improvement in his limited short-term memory and selective long-term memory.
Until his recent admission of blindness, McClellan refused to confront the subject of his
injuries, excusing his lack of sight by saying, "It's dark."
"I told him he was blind, and he got angry," Lisa said. "But he accepted
everything else. I told him he went into a coma and almost died in the fight against Benn.
I explained the head butt (in the ninth round that doctors believe created the blood
clot).
"I told him he won the fight but they gave Nigel the decision. I told him he stayed
in the hospital six months. His questions went on for an hour. He hasn't talked about it
since then."
How much McClellan really understands is a mystery. When he repeats the same conversation
over and over, he appears to be straining to remember. In any case, his condition has
turned his sisters' lives upside down. They now devote themselves to his full-time care,
and for that, they each receive a meager salary of $227 per week from his trust fund.
The McClellan family, which had its share of troubles before Gerald's injury, has
splintered because of differences over how to care for him. McClellan's mother, Genola,
has an alcohol problem that prevents her from helping. His father, Emmit Sr., is estranged
from the family since losing a guardianship hearing in November in which he was opposed by
his daughters.
McClellan's aunt, Linda Shorter, was appointed guardian. Sandra, 31, Lisa, 26, and Stacy,
23, all of whom have families of their own, manage their brother's 24-hour care, and
half-brother Emmit Jr., 32, sometimes helps. Another half-brother, Vincent, 31, is not
involved, and brother Todd, 29, is serving a prison term for battery. Gerald's former
live-in girlfriend, Angela Brown, moved out with their 2-year-old daughter, Forrest,
because of financial and personal differences with McClellan's sisters. Gerald also has
two sons, 6-year-old Gerald Jr., who lives with his mother in Madison, Wis., and Mandale,
5, who lives with his mother in Detroit.
The McClellans' family problems have become entwined in a dispute with promoter Don King
over his financial and moral obligations to Gerald. When Lisa McClellan went public in
November with charges that King paid Gerald less than he expected for the Benn fight and
questioned the amount of an insurance settlement from the World Boxing Council, it
attracted the attention of the FBI.
The central issue is the $250,000 purse McClellan received -- $200,000 plus $50,000 for
training expenses. During the guardianship hearing, Emmit Sr. testified the purse was
supposed to be $450,000. Asked why his son received $200,000 less, he said, "Because
when Gerald got hurt, Don King took the original contract back and ran a phony contract on
him." Emmit admitted he never saw any contract, but he alleged that King sent someone
to retrieve the original from Gerald's London hotel room while he was hospitalized.
Since the hearing, Emmit has recanted, saying Gerald's former trainer, Detroit's Emanuel
Steward, told him the purse should have been $450,000, but "as far as the record
goes, Gerald should receive $250,000."
Steward said McClellan "went to the day before the fight and didn't know what he was
getting."
King has turned down all requests to provide copies of the contract to news organizations
or to the McClellan family, and he denies that it mysteriously disappeared after the
fight. "The contract was never lost," King said. "It's here. It is what it
says it is -- $200,000 plus $50,000 for training expenses."
Not counting the $50,215.37 he received for training, McClellan's purse was reduced to
$62,920.75 by deductions for expenses, the largest of which was a settlement of
$119,275.25 paid to McClellan's manager, John Davimos, and Steward, who split with
McClellan before the Benn fight. Lisa says Gerald was led to believe King would pay that
judgment without deducting it.
Davimos said he and Steward went to court to recover that amount from McClellan because he
had not paid them for his previous fights with them. "Gerald told me Don King was
going to pay the $119,000," Davimos said. "Two days before the Benn fight, I got
a check from Don King Productions for $119,000. Immediately after the fight, Don King
stopped payment on the check. I said, 'No chance. You made a deal with Gerald. I'll force
the judgment.' King said, 'Gerald is in this situation; you can't take the money.' I told
Don I'd pick my own charities. Who knew he was going to take it out of Gerald's
purse?"
King agreed he asked Davimos and Steward not to take the money, saying, "These two
guys are so cold-blooded they didn't give (the McClellans) a dime." But King denied
Lisa's claim he promised to pay the $119,000 judgment.
King has been the largest single contributor to McClellan's trust fund with two donations
totaling $56,519.44. He also paid $22,595 for McClellan's stay at the University of
Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor after he was transported from London in April via an air
ambulance that King said cost him an additional $90,443.25. That brings his total
contribution toward McClellan's medical care to $169,557.69.
In typically grandiose King fashion, the release, titled "Promises Made, Promises
Kept," said King paid more than $500,000 on McClellan's behalf, but that included the
$250,000 purse. While King's noncontractual contributions of more than $258,000 sound
generous, Lisa McClellan takes a more cynical view based on her allegations that King
promised her brother $319,000 he never received, including additional purse money and
payment of the judgment owed to Davimos and Steward.
Considering Gerald McClellan was WBC middleweight champion when he moved up to the
168-pound super-middleweight class to meet Benn, most boxing insiders would agree he was
drastically underpaid at $250,000. Lisa said she believed Benn received $1.7 million. King
said Benn's purse wasn't that high but said he did not know the exact figure. Although
McClellan held the WBC middleweight title for nearly two years with King as his promoter,
his assets at the time of his guardianship hearing totaled only $265,000.
Copyright 1996, The Detroit News