ESPN Classic's "College Sports Century" profiles Cheryl Ford on Friday in what has to be one of the more ironic episodes in the series.
The show (5:30 p.m., ESPN Classic) goes on at some length about how Ford, a star basketball player at Louisiana Tech, "hates" being referred to as Karl Malone's daughter — and being constantly compared to him — and then the show spends most of its half hour doing exactly that.
"College Sports Century" recounts the now familiar tale of Malone fathering Cheryl and her twin brother, Daryl, when he was just 17. How he had no contact with them until they were 17. And the pain that caused his children.
Local viewers may recall a profile NBC did of the Mailman during the 1998 NBA Finals that featured him at home with his wife and children — a profile that the "Century" narration points out "did not jibe with reality." Cheryl Ford certainly remembers it.
"It had him like he was the great, caring father. But we was sitting at home, watching it on TV when we should've been there with him if he was such a great, caring father," she says.
And she speaks of the pain she felt because Malone ignored her and her brother.
"My mama wanted me to play ball, and I told her I didn't want to because I didn't want to follow his footsteps," Cheryl says. "Because, I mean, I know you're not supposed to hate people, but I just hated him because we didn't ask to be here. He didn't want to have nothing to do with us. So I did not want to play basketball.
"But I did. My mom made me, and I'm glad she did."
Malone was interviewed for the program and insisted he felt pain as well — that, at 17, he "didn't know what I was going to do."
"And then to visit them and (their mother) say, 'They're not yours,' you know, yeah, it crushes you," he says.
The twins' mother, Bonita Ford, admits that she "didn't really know if he was their father" and that she was "selfish."
(Although, as the show later points out, she filed a paternity suit in 1989 and Malone settled it three years later.)
Malone gets defensive at one point, declaring, "It's no one's business but mine and who's involved." But, as the program points out, he didn't establish any contact with Cheryl and Daryl until the story made it into the news.
To his credit, Malone says that he still has to "earn the right to be called Dad" (the twins call him Karl), adding, "I give Rita 100 percent of that credit" for doing such a great job raising Cheryl and Daryl.
For their part, the twins say they began bonding with their father when he first came to meet them almost four years ago. But Cheryl had reservations.
"I was wondering why — why did it take you this long?" Cheryl says.
"I'm so sorry about the years we wasted, but I don't dwell in the past, and we're wasting time," Malone replies.
"College Sports Century" manages to make everyone involved look good. But it is interesting that it's only in the last couple of minutes that we really see Cheryl Ford the talented basketball player instead of Karl Malone's daughter, Cheryl Ford.
"Every time I do something, his name gets put in front of my name," she says. "And I don't think that's fair because he wasn't there. He don't deserve the credit. My mom . . . is the one who deserves the credit."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com