Will there ever be another Walter Gretzky in sports?

[Big Phil]

We all know of Walter's passing the other day and that was just a heartbreaking speech on Wayne's part during the funeral. You could tell how it ended that he was holding a lot in. So sad.

I met Walter, and I am sure many of us did. It never seemed like he had a bad bone in his body his entire life. We were better off in Canada having him all of this time. A humble man who worked as a phone repair man for Bell (I think I got that right?) right up until the early 1990s when he got his aneurysm. I believe he retired from that line of work then. But imagine that, your son is winning Cups and setting records never to be broken and you are still doing a factory job. Now that is humble. I am sure Wayne could have easily given him a nest egg back in the 1980s if he wanted to put his feet up the rest of his life.

Anyway, my question is, will we ever see an athlete whose father is as well known in circles as Walter? My mother knows who Walter Gretzky is for example. So does my sister. Granted, Gretzky was the most famous athlete in Canada but it isn't as if there haven't been famous athletes before. Babe Ruth was an orphan, so we don't know his parents. Michael Jordan's dad tragically got killed in 1993 and I honestly would have to look up his name to remember it. Barry Bonds' godfather is Willy Mays, but few can recall a lot about his father Bobby. Quick, name Lebron's father! Or mother. Ditto for A-Rod. Tom Brady's dad is named Tom, but I know little else about him. Peyton Manning's father is Archie a less famous former QB. We know him, but if he were a carpenter would you have even known his name? I couldn't even tell you Mario's parent's names. Crosby's dad is named Troy, that's all I know. I couldn't even picture Ovie's dad. Steph Curry's dad is Del, but we know this because he played in the NBA.

So honestly, has there ever been a time when a father was so well known of an athlete that he is nearly as beloved as the athlete himself? Or that we all felt a part of him, as if he was Canada's father, or the ultimate hockey dad? Honestly, I don't even know the names of Elvis Presley's parents off by heart. But we all knew Walter. Part of it was because he was around and marketed and obviously that was because of his son. But will this ever happen again in sports history where there is an athlete whose father is as well known as Walter.

The closest I have seen is Tiger Woods and Earl. But even then it wasn't quite the same.

Click to read more...

 

[MadLuke]

 

[Zuluss]

Brett Hull's dad was quite well-known, I recall
Ovechkin's mom is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and I believe she ran Dynamo's women basketball team for a while, so I bet people in Russia know her
Ovechkin's dad "uncle Misha" is well-known in DC, and once said in jest he is the third most popular person in town ("The most popular one is Sasha, then Obama, then me")

 

[MXD]

It feels more like an Canada thing (or even possibly an Ontario thing) than a hockey thing.

 

[The Panther]

Thanks to neoliberal discourse, the urbanization of the Canadian population, and the victory of style over substance in media circles, I just don't think the conditions will ever again exist for a working-class, small-town sports-dad (who himself was not a well-known athlete) to become a Canadian celebrity. So, I guess my answer is, 'no'.

There's a great interview with Walter here, from 2001, where he talks mainly about his aneurysm and how different his own personality and life were before and after:


Although Walter's media persona seemed fairly unchanged before and after 1991, I suspect that his character was radically different (he says so in the interview). Up to the dawn of the 90s, this was a guy who obsessed over Wayne's games (staying up very late to watch them in Edmonton and L.A.), regularly drank coffee until 3am, and then went to work at 8 am every day. He picked his home in Brantford partly because he imagined that he could build a skating rink in the yard (this, before his first child was born). He told 10-year-old Wayne that he couldn't afford to have any bad games, and, 16 years later, after game one of the '87 Canada Cup, when he met Wayne, the first thing he said was, "It's your fault you guys lost, you know."

I do sometimes wonder about how tough (or not) Walter was on Wayne. Despite the appalling dullness of Wayne's 1990-91 autobiography (which Rick Reilly said he had to re-write ten times to make it "bland enough" to pacify Wayne), Pocklington / Sather come in for some flack (not so surprising in the context of the times), but so does his dad (a little bit... which is surprising). Wayne pulls his punches, but he does make it sound like -- this one and only time -- his father was a strong and pushy sports-father.

In all subsequent interviews I've seen, when the topic of his father's pushing him came up, Wayne always immediately deflated any suggestion that his dad was rough on him. But I'm not entirely convinced...

 

[Marotte Marauder]

So honestly, has there ever been a time when a father was so well known of an athlete that he is nearly as beloved as the athlete himself?

Press and Pistol Pete Maravich

 

[MadLuke]

and the victory of style over substance in media circles

Pretty much 100% of the coverage of star system by a media is style over any substance, let alone the family of the stars no ? (same would go for covering something like professional sports, sports taking so much media space was the victory of non-sense over substance in the media circles)

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

It's funny because it's such a good answer.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

walter gretzky is a stroke of genius branding. not to say he wasn't a saint like canada thinks he is, because he probably was, but the whole canadian tire/tim horton's thing, it brings a tear to my eye in some deeply emotionally manipulative ways. and i am not a canadiana guy, not even a little bit.

i do wonder if, generationally, the world has moved on from a story like walter gretzky. like, i don't know that we can tell that story anymore. people are too cynical, mass media is too negative, and maybe just maybe the money is too big. when we hear about dads, they are bad dads. michael jackson's dad, the beach boys' dad, britney spears' parents, or as per this thread lavar ball.

and then a cynical part of me wonders about walter too. i have seen my share of hockey dads and you can't obsessively drill your kid the way he drilled gretzky without maybe at least being on a spectrum that includes lindros' dad... and maybe even bobby ryan's and patrick o'sullivan's dad right? idk, i'm not saying he was a psychopath like those last two or anything, just that that's not normal dad behaviour. i also wonder about carl lindros, and whether maybe they aren't so dissimilar but walter just had better pr than carl lindros, and maybe doug messier just was smart enough to not be a total jackass in public and carl wasn't.

as for other dads, richard williams has consistently been in the public eye for two decades and has a disney biopic coming out this year where will smith plays him.

 

[The Panther]

Press and Pistol Pete Maravich

I thought of this twosome, also, when Walter died (also Eastern Europeans!), but I just didn't think Press Maravich is as well-known Stateside as Walter is in Canada. Also, I don't think Press has that saintly veneer about him...

 

[The Panther]

Pretty much 100% of the coverage of star system by a media is style over any substance, let alone the family of the stars no ? (same would go for covering something like professional sports, sports taking so much media space was the victory of non-sense over substance in the media circles)

I don't think sports is nonsense -- I think it's quite important in a way.

 

[MadLuke]

I don't think sports is nonsense -- I think it's quite important in a way.

In a way fully agree (i.e. during the playoffs if the Habs are playing people putting gas in their cars, waiting in line, speak more to stranger than usual in Montreal) and so on, but a popular reality tv shows would be similar in that regard I imagine, I am not sure what media attention could be less substantive than covering athlete personal life and their family.

We are close to the bottom of the barrel. Media making a shift in which hockey player parents become bigger star than they are now do not feel like a turn into substance, it is hard to imagine what could be less substance and possibly less important than that for a media to cover and for a society to put mental attention toward than that. Any answer would be quite subjective and litteral youtube cat video is not an obvious one.

P.S. Sport is vastly different than media covering professional sport personality, even if linked.

 

[The Panther]

In a way fully agree (i.e. during the playoffs if the Habs are playing people putting gas in their cars, waiting in line, speak more to stranger than usual in Montreal) and so on, but a popular reality tv shows would be similar in that regard I imagine, I am not sure what media attention could be less substantive than covering athlete personal life and their family.

We are close to the bottom of the barrel. Media making a shift in which hockey player parents become bigger star than they are now do not feel like a turn into substance, it is hard to imagine what could be less substance and possibly less important than that for a media to cover and for a society to put mental attention toward than that. Any answer would be quite subjective and litteral youtube cat video is not an obvious one.

I'm not exactly sure what point you're making here, but I have a feeling I mainly agree with you.

However, none of this applies to the Walter Gretzky situation. Of course, Walter wouldn't have become famous without his son's exploits, but there is plenty of substance to Walter's celebrity: His tirelessly kind way of treating fans, visitors to their home, media, etc.; his considerable work with minor hockey; his sharing with others his own recovery from illness and struggle to regain his memory, etc.

My point was, I think if "another Walter Gretzky" were in our midst today, the media would give him a pass.

 

[Big Phil]

For those that don't know, that is Lavar Ball. Father of three NBA players. I don't think that even with the controversial comments he has made over the years and the overbearing things he has said that were just completely out of place that even in the U.S. people knew him anything close to how Walter was known in Canada. Allen Iverson's mom comes to mind with that same mold of nightmarish sports parent.

 

[VanIslander]

There are tons.

 

[Marotte Marauder]

The Ripkens?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Richard Williams, father and tennis coach of Venus & Serena.

 

[MXD]

Richard Williams, father and tennis coach of Venus & Serena.

One thing though : Richard Williams has his detractors. Walter Gretzky, for all intents and purposes, didn't.
(Let's not get into the reasons why...)

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

One thing though : Richard Williams has his detractors. Walter Gretzky, for all intents and purposes, didn't.
(Let's not get into the reasons why...)

True. He was an outsider (duh?) and quite brash.

I recall when Venus first started on the circuit, Richard told the media Serena would be better. The whole tennis world laughed at him. Some joke, eh?

 

[tarheelhockey]

It feels more like an Canada thing (or even possibly an Ontario thing) than a hockey thing.

I was just about to type the same thing. The fact that Gretzky's dad taught him the mental side of the game is kind of vaguely known in the mainstream culture, but I don't think many people outside Canada could tell you anything else about him (including his name).

This list is kind of pop-culture influenced and includes both "famous and infamous", but I think it gives a decent sense of who Americans think of as Sports Dads. Hockey is well represented on the list, but Walter Gretzky's not on there.

The most famous and infamous sports fathers

Love him or leave him, but Lavar Ball is a much much better known figure in the USA, and with the direction his boys are headed (especially Lamelo, who looks like something special) we might actually see the day where people say 'yeah he's a loudmouth but he did something right'. Tiger Woods' father Earl was a somewhat well known figure, and his passing got similar levels of media coverage to Walter Gretzky's... I think that's probably the closest comparison on this side of the border.

A large part of the difference between Then and Now is that parents of sports prodigies have to take seriously their role as agent, starting at age 12 or so. There's too much on the line for them to trust others with their children's best interest... not just monetarily but physically and psychologically.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I saw some of the footage this weekend thanks to watching HNIC, and I literally pointed out to my wife "You wanna see how much Canadians love hockey? They treat this guy's death like a prominent member of the royal family died and his claim to fame? He was Wayne Gretzky's dad. That's it."

I think it is a Canada thing, and no I don't think there's any parallel. There's plenty of celebrity parents that manage to turn themselves into B list celebrities themselves or try to anyway, but it's usually deemed a sordid and rather unpleasant affair. Those parents are known but not admired.

 

[Mickey Marner]

There are several, I'm sure, but they'll never reach that level of fame through the same means -being a great person in real life- because fame is based on social media now. So much time and effort is spent cultivating one's virtual existence now that efforts made in real life don't register unless they're put on the internet. The odds of being the father of The Great One are incredibly low as well, so even finding yourself in that position is wildly unlikely.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Earl Woods

He was front and center in Tiger's early career before he passed away. Hell, in the 80s he and a 4yr old Tiger were on late night shows showing off Tiger's golfing ability.

On an aside, personally I dont like parents that are front and center with their superstar kids. Just screams "I live through my kids to cover my short comings" and screams another Joe Jackson situation where the kid had no life

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

One thing though : Richard Williams has his detractors. Walter Gretzky, for all intents and purposes, didn't.
(Let's not get into the reasons why...)

without getting too far into the whole thing, let me just say (neutrally, as a father) that if i was him and i saw what the sports said about/said to/did to my daughters i would have behaved A LOT more aggressively than he ever did.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

but speaking of heartwarming hockey dad stories, did anyone catch in either the dying seconds or postgame celebration of the stanley cup finals ron maclean's anecdote about subban and stamkos' dads?

the fine details might be off but the way i remember it, he referred to a passage in karl subban's book about an incident when pk was a kid and one of the parents on the other team was taunting him. and karl, who knows that this is how it's going to go for his boys if they're going to continue in hockey and has taught them (and himself) how to control their tempers and not let it cause a big thing every time, emotionally compartmentalize it, talk it out after the game on the drive home, is fuming but not reacting publicly.

so one of the dads on his team gets up, goes over to where the other team's parents are sitting, says something to that dad that karl can't hear and that was the end of it. and it meant the world to him that this guy had his and pk's back.

so as the seconds are counting down (i think... might have been in the postgame celebration tbh), ron maclean tells this anecdote and then goes full garrison keiller. "and karl never said who it was because the other dad never wanted to deflect attention away, but i asked karl yesterday and he said that in this moment positive examples of allyship are important so he gave me permission. and that man was.... steven stamkos' dad."

and the broadcast cuts to stamkos' dad watching his kid win the stanley cup. what a moment.


and back on topic, karl subban is probably the walter gretzkiest hockey dad of this generation. when i was a kid in the '80s/90s we'd hear about walter gretzky making his backyard rink and drilling wayne to see every angle, "where the puck is going not where it's been," and all that. when my son was three, one of the first hockey books he got had all the same stories i heard/read as a kid: jacques plante taking that bathgate shot to the face and putting on a mask, abby hoffman pretending to be a boy so she could play minor hockey, mud bruneteau ending the longest game ever, frank zamboni inventing the zamboni—plus a chapter on karl subban taking little pk to the public rink after hours.