I Love You Mom, Here’s a Mansion: The Houses Pro Athletes Buy for Their Mothers.
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Screengrab of Google Maps view of neighborhood; Robb Hill.
"Even when I was 5 or 6, I would say, 'Mom, I'm going to buy you a house one day,' " NFL quarterback Byron Leftwich said in 2009.
He’s not alone. A number of pro athletes have put their earnings toward houses for the first woman they ever loved. We’ve tracked down a few of those addresses, including this peaceful home, marked with a red dot, in Accokeek, Md., that Leftwich purchased for his mom Brenda (pictured) after signing with the Jaguars in 2003.
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Screengrab of Google Map view of home.
NBA giant John Wall may know it’s the thought that counts. But when it comes to pleasing Mom, a lovely villa in Raleigh, N.C., can’t hurt either.
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Nam Y. Hu/Associated Press.
Rather than the usual house, Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade went for a house of prayer, buying his mother a Chicago church. Here, he assists his mother, Jolinda, with the ribbon-cutting, alongside pastor LaDell Jones in May 2008.
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Screengrab of Google Map view of home.
Baseball wunderkind Bryce Harper, who just made his major-league debut at 19 for the Washington Nationals, installed his family in a dream home in Las Vegas, not far from where he grew up.
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Screengrab of Google earth view of home.
Tiger Woods expressed his gratitude to his mom, Tida, by building her a $5 million dollar palace in Florida with a crystalline lake out back. (The property extends to the right, as the marker indicates.)
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Screengrab of Google Map view of home.
New York Jets star Antonio Cromartie treated his mother to new digs in Tallahassee, Fla., in November 2006, shortly after signing his first pro football contract. Cromartie himself is no stranger to parenting: He currently has 10 kids, with two more on the way. But all is not well in the world of Cromartie real estate: As of April 2012, the bank of New York was threatening the NFL player with foreclosure after he failed to pay $105,381 in mortgage fees.
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Screengrab of Google Map view of home.
Eagles quarterback Michael Vick has many things to atone for, but giving his mother this scenic residence at the end of a cul-de-sac (note red dot) in Suffolk, Va., is not one of them.
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Screengrab via aerial map/Microsoft Corporation/Pictometry’s Bird Eye/MDA Geospatial Services.
In April 2001, a shadow fell over the five-bedroom, four-bath colonial house Marcus Camby bought for his mother and two sisters in Hartford, Conn. (The dot above shows the vicinity of the home.) A man broke into the home and held one of the then-Knicks center’s sisters hostage. Fortunately, the intruder surrendered peacefully the next morning, after Camby himself showed up at the scene, having been alerted by the police.
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Screengrab of Google Earth view of home.
The mansion that former Celtics star Antoine Walker built his mother in the Chicago suburbs boasts a full-size basketball court, 10 bathrooms, and an indoor pool.
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