Meadowlark Lemon

Just after he left the Army, Lemon had married childhood friend Willye Maultsby. However, as Lemon's fame on the court advanced, his home life deteriorated. Lemon traveled ten months a year, playing more than 300 games, leaving his wife home with their five children.

Lemon was absent so often that his daughter Beverly wrote a school paper describing her father as a dishwasher because that's what she saw him do when he was home. Another daughter, Robin, told her teacher that her father lived at the airport.

Lemon and his wife began to argue, so he stayed away more and more. During the off-season, he jumped at the chance to do promotions for the team so he wouldn't have to go home. In time, Lemon was hitting the clubs with the other guys, picking up women. In his autobiography, Lemon said that he rationalized the behavior at the time. After all, he'd grown up in Wilmington watching other men do the same. He figured other women were just a part of married life. Needless to say, they divorced around 1977.