The age-old question continues to arise today. Are professional athletes born or made? This single query has rattled the minds of many trainers, coaches, kids and even journalists like myself. It appears so simple when asked, yet it becomes a far deeper equation upon scratching the surface slightly.
The nature versus nurture aspect behind professional sports has caused quite a bit of buzz. There is even a rumored “athlete gene” that some say predisposes us to success in our chosen endeavors. In a 2016 Harvard lecture, Heather Landry discusses the Athlete Institute aptitude and personality test relating to an athlete’s success.
The data from the Athlete Institute test highlighted three foundational DNA pillars that could be behind athlete’s success:
• High sports intelligence
• High athleticism
• Moderate agreeableness
Does this mean athlete success is something that Cristiano Ronaldo, Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer, Lionel Messi and others were born with? Maybe not, but these traits definitely don’t hurt.
The genetics portion of athletes has died down a bit since the 2000s. However, the question of whether athletes are born or made is still up for serious debating. I think it’s a bit of both — this article will explain why.
The Athletes’ ‘Nature’ Argument
Are professional athletes born? Absolutely. However, it goes a bit deeper than just being born with a certain personality and attitude traits. The ability to apply those traits correctly and in the right space makes an athlete successful.
American basketball player, record producer, and fashion designer Damian Lillard is exceptional at what he does in his specific space. Still, he may be hard-pressed to develop soccer skills that would have had the same success as Lionel Messi or run fast as Usain Bolt.
I believe that Lillard was able to have such success because he applied his natural athlete traits (persistence) to what they were meant for (music). The same goes for Messi and Bolt. These two probably wouldn’t have been able to establish highly successful music albums like The Letter O or Dirty Money Come Clean.
There is likewise an element of passion within the athlete’s “nature” argument. Why was Lillard so successful when applying his natural abilities? He was passionate about music and basketball, allowing him to expand at an early age.
Why do I even use the music parallel of Damian Lillard to answer whether athletes are made or born?
The passion is burned into a tenaciousness. This allowed Lillard to overcome setbacks in multiple industries, catalyzing his long-term success.
This example highlights how athletes are indeed born, as long as their inner traits are utilized the right way, at the right time, and with no words like “give up” in their athlete lexicon.
Pro athletes get genes and much more from their parents
When it comes to parents, do their genes influence their children’s athletic careers?
To discover out more about the role of parents in the making of elite athletes, Stuart Wilson, currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa, revisited data compiled from previous studies done by New Zealander Melissa Wilson, featuring 229 athletes from Canada and Australia.
The athletes, who were split into three sections based on their performance level; elite (competed globally), pre-elite (junior international or senior national team level), and non-elite (all other lower levels of competition), were correlated to their parents’ history of sports participation (recreational or competitive sport) and success.
“To the best of my knowledge, that is the first (study) to explain the correlation between an athlete’s performance level and the sport participation and expertise of their mothers and fathers,” said Wilson.
Not surprisingly, elite athletes were four times more likely than pre-elite athletes to have parents who played a competitive sport and twice as probable as non-elite athletes to have parents with a history of playing a recreational sport. Pro athletes were also more likely to have moms and dads who were also elite athletes who shared the equal sport.
What Wilson finds interesting is that as you go up the scale of athletic skill level, from non-elite to elite, the relationship of parents who participated in sports also goes up.
“Parents who played at an elite level were overrepresented amid elite athletes and underrepresented amid non-elite athletes,” reported Wilson. “Non-elite level parents were overrepresented amid non-elite athletes and underrepresented amid elite athletes. Likewise, pre-elite level parents were underrepresented amid non-elite athletes.”
This sport commitment pattern remained the same whether the mother or father was an athlete, but between the athletes polled, there were more athletic fathers than mothers.
Wilson proposes that the experience gained by parents while playing sports themselves makes them more able to assist their child’s athletic journey. That often begins with enrolling young athletes in the sport in which the mom and dad excelled.
Often that connection with the sport means being able to expose them to more opportunities or carve a better path to success compared to parents who may not understand the culture of the sport.
Also worthy of noting is that the higher the level of athletic performance obtained by the parent, the better they can provide emotional and directive advice to their young athlete.
Keep in mind that not all help provided to young athletes by their equally athletic parents is verbal. Likely, a significant knowledge of what’s transferred between sporty parent and sporty child is done so more by example than by lecturing. The more children see their parents are active and/or competing in sport, the more likely they will follow.
All of this makes sense if we take a closer look at those families who dominate our local sports scene. It’s probable that one or more parent was or is still occupied in sport or sports an active lifestyle. It’s also probable that their participation in sport was at a competitive level.
“We often hear about how moms and pops can put pressure on kids, but this analysis takes a more positive look at the part parents play in their children’s athletic success,” said Wilson.
The Athletes’ ‘Nurture’ Argument
Can athletes be made? Of course. We can all become something as long as we apply ourselves unconditionally. If nurture did not live within greatness, the education system would be the biggest scam of all time.
Successful athletes are indeed born, and they need to use their traits a certain way. However, not a single person is born with all the traits needed to be 100% successful on their own.
There is no “one-man-band” in professional sports. Along the way, every successful basketball, soccer, or tennis player has learned new traits, making trainer or coach (mentorship) an absolute must. Every athlete on the planet had some type of mentor or network of people they could turn to for advice, learn from and bounce ideas off of.
So yes, there should be a bit of nurture involved with athlete success. How one gets nurtured is what makes all the difference. My recommendation would be to actively seek great coaches and build a strong network of players who have your improvement in mind.
Ever hear that statement, “You are the company you keep”? If you keep company with those who are successful, you are far more likely to be successful yourself. It’s not because they’ll hand you money. It is because they will share training knowledge with you. That has a profound impact on any athlete and is the reason why nurture is present in our daily lives.
Can Your Training Environment Make You a Pro Athlete?
The fundamental question is whether the environment and how young athletes practice can affect their ability. Are youngsters from certain sports backgrounds better placed than others?
Francois-Xavier Li of the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham has found that children play from a young age in industrialized countries such as England in a “standardized environment.”
As he says, “the boots, the balls, the grounds and duration of the games are all the same. This provides a safe environment, but not one that challenges players to perform in a variety of settings”.
In less modernized and industrialized areas, such as South America and Africa, the facilities are not as good as the West. Children tend to play in a more varied environment.
You might expect countries with modern, standardized, and safe conditions to produce better players and teams. Yet, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay are three of the most successful soccer teams in World Cup history.
Although African nations do not tend to do well at professional team sports, many African players now feature prominently in Europe’s top leagues, in environments very different from the ones they grew up in.
Professional Sports: Where Nature Meets Nurture
From my experience, athletes are both born and made. The combo of these two forces is also not rare. Each day/week/month, a new athlete shines, a new star is in the making, and success of some kind is had. These newly successful athletes were born and nurtured to their achievements. Their use of traits, passion, tenaciousness, and yearning for knowledge is at the heart of their success — a very special spot where nature meets nurture.
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