“At least I’m not the first to fall for this sort of thing.” a sheepish Dirk Notwitzki tells Der Spiegal’s Cathrin Gilbert as the details of his former fiancee Cristal Taylor aka Christian Trevino’s criminal past become newspaper & blog fodder around the world. Dirk tells Taylor he’s not set foot in his Dallas home since the May 6 morning of Taylor’s arrest, and recalls his dad calling the relationship “a lapse in taste”. Hey, we’ve all been there!
Nowitzki says that he always enjoyed not having to worry about anything. Even as a child, his mother, Helga, made all of his decisions for him, protecting her chicks like a mother hen. Nowadays, says Nowitzki, he wonders whether it was such a good idea to have taken so little responsibility.
Every morning, he would drive out of the garage of his $6 million (‚¬4.3 million) mansion — not far from where former President George W. Bush’s neighborhood now lives — in his $130,000 (‚¬93,000) Mercedes AMG, and drive to the Mavericks’ parking garage. In the evening, he would drive home again. Perhaps this is the only path a gifted athlete can take if he hopes to remain successful. Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher chose the same path. Perhaps it is simply the easiest path. At any rate, it isn’t dangerous, because by staying out of the limelight, a player is able to avoid the critics, even as he loses his ability to recognize danger and to make emotional decisions
Randy Stevens is a detective in Beaumont. They call him the “Crime Stopper.” He has been dealing with the Taylor case for the last four years. It’s the craziest story he has ever heard, says Stevens. It began when he was contacted by a dentist who had been waiting for months to be paid about $10,000 (‚¬7,140) for working on Taylor’s teeth. She was apparently still living in Woodlands, north of Houston, at the time, says Stevens. He tried to meet her there four times, but was unsuccessful. He notified a special government agency in Nashville, Tennessee, and then added the case to his files, complete with Taylor’s mug shot. If he hadn’t seen a report on television about the NBA star and his mysterious fiancée in early May, he would never have found Taylor. “Her tactics were simply too professional,” says the Crime Stopper.
Nowitzki is sitting in his father’s leather chair, wearing shorts but no shoes. He isn’t quite sure what will happen next. He is still considering whether to play for Germany at the European championship in Poland in September. When he flies back to Dallas in September, Nowitzki will have to find a new life. He would probably be better off forgetting everything else.