Longtime NBA center Robert Parish, known for his on-court stoicism, battered his former wife throughout their marriage, according to this week's Sports Illustrated.
In a story on spousal abuse sparked by charges filed in Houston against NFL quarterback Warren Moon, the magazine said Parish's beatings of Nancy Saad culminated on June 2, 1987, in a Los Angeles hotel hours before the Boston Celtics, for whom Parish played 14 of his 18 seasons, were to open the NBA Finals against the Lakers.Saad told the magazine she went to talk to Parish about their 5-year-old son, Justin.
She said when she knocked on her estranged husband's door, he first closed it on her. When she knocked again, she said Parish grabbed her by the throat and threw her into the hallway. Saad told SI she remembers being punched and thrown into a wall and then kicked by Parish.
The next day, Saad said, she was admitted to a Santa Monica hospital, where she stayed for seven days.
Saad told the magazine Parish began abusing her both psychologically and physically shortly after their relationship began in 1980.
Saad, who said she was beaten as a child by her father, divorced Parish in 1990 and said it was not until last year that she viewed herself as a battered wife.
"I didn't begin to understand this until I saw Robert as a victim," she said. "This was something he learned from somebody before him. He never got help. I think a lot of famous men are afraid to come out of the closet and say, `I have this problem.' Once I saw Robert as a victim, too, I was able to forgive him. And I have."
The Sports Illustrated article made no reference to charges ever being filed by Saad against Parish.
The magazine quoted his representative, James McLaughlin, as saying that Parish declined to comment on the SI report or any other "allegations made by his ex-wife."