I know Mother’s Day is just around the corner, but this can’t wait until Father’s Day, not with all the talk circling in sports about famous dads and their dereliction of duty to their pro athlete sons.
It started recently with LeBron James and the barrage of criticism he received after his son Bronny followed in his footsteps to join him on the storied Los Angeles Lakers.
Though they made history as the first father-and-and son teammates in the NBA, it became clear early on that Bronny, the way less talented son, was out of his league.
But it was LeBron, the father, who caught most of the backlash for orchestrating the circus, and, worse, for not protecting his son from the storm.
“I am pleading with LeBron James as a father, stop this,” said ESPN host Stephen A. Smith. “Stop this. We all know Bronny James is in the NBA because of his dad.”
Fast forward a few weeks to the NFL draft featuring University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders — son of Hall of Fame football great Deion Sanders — whose stock couldn’t have dropped faster if he were hit with a Trump tariff.
Shedeur’s unexpected slide to the fifth round likely cost him millions, but it was his father — nickname: PrimeTime — who is still paying the price in criticism for not adequately preparing his son for the process.
And for not teaching him more about humility.
The negative narrative is that these two fathers — confident, outspoken, winning Black men — did more harm than good by spoiling their sons with lessons of entitlement.
These fatherhood failures, the narrative goes, ruined their sons’ lives and careers.
In the words of Stephen A. Smith, stop this! Just stop it!
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t chastise Black men for being absentee fathers, and then slam them for being helicopter parents.
Exactly how did they fail their children? Where did LeBron and Deion go wrong?
Bronny and Shedeur are multi-millionaires. Both of them are financially set for life. Both of them went to college. Neither of them have been in trouble with the law.
What father wouldn’t want that for his son?
And how about some recognition for their mothers. Do you think these famous fathers got their sons this far by themselves while they were out GOATing and hall of faming?
The reality is that most of the critics are driven by one thing, and one thing only: jealousy.
Okay, two things. What’s the other thing? Well, let’s just say Archie Manning didn’t get this kind of backlash when he forced his son Eli’s trade to the Giants.
None of the critics, not a single one of them, are as good at what they do as LeBron or Deion were at what they did or what they continue to do.
The critics aren’t even good at criticizing. They are just excellent at hating.
We’ve heard them before. We heard them when LeVar Ball boldly pronounced that all three of his sons would make it to the NBA. (Two of them, Lonzo and LaMelo, are currently in the league.)
We heard them when Richard Williams, who learned tennis from magazines and instructional videos, took his daughters, Venus and Serena, literally “Straight Outta Compton” to Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
And we heard them when Earl Woods, an Army special forces veteran, steered his son, Tiger, to golf immortality.
Every now and then, a sports father comes along who deserves the criticism, like John Haliburton, who embarrassed himself and his son, Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, after a Pacers playoff victory last week.
The older Haliburton stormed the floor and taunted Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo after the game. The father has been banned from the next round of playoff games.
There are some critics who would probably love to ban Deion Sanders from the sidelines. Many of them refused to draft his son. Why?
They probably didn’t like the idea of dealing with a helicopter parent who could afford his own helicopter.
