It was the tearful father-son embrace moments after he won this weekend’s British Grand Prix that proves Sir Lewis Hamilton’s relationship with his father is stronger than ever.
It wasn’t always so. Anthony Hamilton was the driving force behind his son’s early successes, working multiple jobs to fund his training and then managing his career. But by 2010, their relationship was strained and Lewis, then aged 25, publicly fired his father. “What I am really, really excited about now is having my dad just as my dad,” he said, but they reportedly didn’t speak for weeks afterwards.
This is just one example of how the famously fraught relationship between a parent-manager and sporting child can be a double-edged sword. Teenage tennis prodigy Emma Raducanu, now 21, has freely admitted her parents are “so pushy. When I was younger, more so,” and said when her father first “forced” her to take up tennis, she didn’t even like the sport.
Tennis in particular seems to be a crucible for “pushy” parents. Wherever you find Sir Andy Murray, or his elder brother Jamie, you will likely find Judy – dubbed the ultimate tennis tiger mother – courtside, pumping her fist in the air. As a qualified tennis coach, she helmed the boys’ nascent careers and has continued to be an ever present voice on the subject of their performances despite, on paper, having no skin in the game. Just this weekend, Judy Murray appeared to criticise Raducanu for dropping out of playing mixed doubles with her youngest son.
Serena and Venus Williams’s father, Richard, was so hellbent on turning his daughters into tennis stars that he wrote a 78-page playbook on the subject, which was turned into the film King Richard starring Will Smith. In his memoir Open, Andre Agassi says his father, Mike, forced his son to play tennis by making a machine he called “the dragon” to relentlessly throw balls at him. He has said he felt like he was on a “production line.”
It is a tale as old as time: a young prodigy rises up through the ranks but their parents are pulling the strings. “If you look at all the greats, they’ve had massive parental influence,” says Adam Nicholls, a professor of sports psychology at the University of Hull. “When I see these athletes with these pushy parents – they’re probably a big reason for their success. It doesn’t mean they have good parent-child relationships, it might be unhealthy. But it appears to drive [them].”
With the 24/7 supervision and support that a parent-slash-manager can offer, a teenage athlete can reach untold heights – parents are theoretically on call 24 hours a day and can serve as an amateur manager, chauffeur, nutritionist and therapist in one, unlike a paid professional. And there’s nothing like a hefty dose of parental pressure to spur a young sportsperson on.
If it works, the benefits are “love and encouragement” at a level you might not get from a professional coach, says Prof Nicholls. “Knowing you have a parent who is really there and supports you and can offer advice on different areas can have a positive impact. Someone who really cares for your wellbeing and future success.”
Raducanu’s parents travel with her whenever they aren’t working, and she credits them as a driving force behind her success, despite the “resentment” she felt in her teenage years. “I like to keep them close, as a lot of people like to separate the player from their parents as they are easier to manipulate,” she said in an interview with The Times. The 21-year-old has cycled through numerous coaches in the past three years and, despite not being her official manager, it is said to be her father, Ian, running the show, both on and off the court.
“Her dad was the one who was putting in a lot of the gameplans for the matches,” Max Eisenbud, agent of global sports company IMG told Tennis Podcast last year. “In my mind, Ian was always the project manager. He has overseen all of Emma’s development from day one… Many people thought he was crazy, but he was diligent and meticulous over everything.” Another agent, John Morris, who got Raducanu on board at IMG when she was 15, said: “This has been his life since she was five or six.”
But parental over-involvement can easily backfire. “There are two sides to this,” says Nicholls. “Having done research with lots of international adolescent athletes, there’s a massive pressure and sense of responsibility. It will always depend on the parent. My son plays grassroots sport and I see some horrendous behaviour.”
He talks of parents actively reprimanding their children in front of others, an incident when a child was crying and wanting to come off the pitch but their parent would not let them, and even one parent kicking their child because they’d made a mistake. He explains that in terms of body language, you can see the child physically shrinking under the pressure.
At its worst, Nicholls’s research has shown this can cause “quite a lot of negative consequences… stress, high levels of anxiety, disengagement, lack of enjoyment… Children are very aware of the cost of going to international competitions and knowing what their parents have invested. It adds a burden.”
Dr Rod Jaques, the former national medical director of the English Institute for Sport, has spoken of the potential pitfalls that parent coaches need to navigate.
“I think it is a tough one when a parent is both the coach and parent. It is a potential for conflict of interest there. It’s a very delicate balance between encouragement and support for that child and its potential for being a mentor or tormentor of the child.”
He said most parents show that “the love is entirely unconditional”. But “Occasionally, I don’t see that. The love is conditional upon them [the child] having sporting success.”
It’s not uncommon for the parent-coach and sportstar child relationship to falter as their career takes off and external pressure increases, as in Sir Lewis’s case. But it is clear how vital his father Anthony’s support was; in the early days he was doing a full day’s work for British Rail then an evening shift erecting for sale signs for a local estate agent in order to fulfil his son’s racing dreams. Not long before they parted ways professionally, Sir Lewis paid tribute to his dad as “the best manager in Formula One”.
At a certain point in an athlete’s career, it’s time to call in the professionals. As Sir Lewis found when he was grappling with newfound fame, “All of a sudden you’re thrown in. And, at the time, I didn’t have any management other than my dad, and my stepmum booked flights and trips,” he said. It seems to have been their father-son relationship that suffered. His father was so involved in managing his fledgling career that “I think it was difficult for him to then show me love,” he said on a podcast.
Nicholls says: “A step back frees up your relationship with your parents – like Hamilton said – so they can go back to being parents again.” Happily, their rift has remained firmly in the past. “Sometimes you just want a hug from your dad,” he said at the time. But on Sunday, his father was by his side as a shoulder to cry (happy tears) on.
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