What actually happens when elite athletes become parents? Do they slow down, level up, or simply evolve?
The Action Network evaluated performance data across nine sports and over 40 athletes, to create a comprehensive Sports Parenting Index. This index analyzes how parenthood impacts athletic performance.
This research uncovered hidden patterns and upends existing assumptions.
Key Findings
- Parenthood amplifies an athlete’s existing trajectory: Those already rising often surge post-parenthood, while athletes entering decline generally keep declining.
- Postpartum return defies the gender gap: Women face pregnancy, childbirth, and full physical rebuild—yet many return stronger. Men navigate logistical and emotional shifts, but no physiological interruption.
- Women’s soccer delivers the strongest and most consistent gains: Stars like Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux, and Crystal Dunn posted massive scoring-efficiency jumps (67%–200%), making women’s soccer the clearest positive signal in the dataset.
- Male outcomes are wildly mixed: Cristiano Ronaldo saw one of the dataset’s biggest surges, while Lionel Messi dipped slightly.
- Early-career parents are the biggest winners: LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Cristiano Ronaldo, Clayton Kershaw, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce all improved sharply after becoming parents in their early-to-mid 20s. This suggests age, not parenthood, may play a sharper role in sports’ decline.
- Late-career parents tend to decline—but mostly due to aging, not parenting: Tiger Woods, Andy Murray, Serena Williams, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and Kelly Slater all declined post-parenthood in ways aligned with injuries and natural late-career downturns.
- Team sports support parent-athletes better than individual sports: Basketball, soccer, and baseball show more post-parenthood gains. Tennis, golf, track, and volleyball skew negative.
- The strongest positive Sports Parenting Index clusters: Female soccer players, early-career male NBA stars, and prime-career MLB players.
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Athletes With Biggest Post-Parenthood Performance Surge
These athletes showed significant improvements across at least one major metric, with no major declines.
1. Crystal Dunn — Soccer
Goals per Game: +200%
Crystal Dunn recorded the biggest surge in the entire dataset, tripling her goals-per-game rate after becoming a mother to her son Marcel in 2022. Already one of the NWSL’s most versatile players, she returned with sharper attacking instincts and heightened two-way influence.
2. Clayton Kershaw — Baseball
Wins Above Replacement: +112.9%
Kershaw’s leap into Cy Young–level dominance aligns with the seasons during which he and his wife welcomed their three children. Parenthood overlapped with the most consistent and commanding stretch of his career.
3. Sydney Leroux — Soccer
Goals per Game: +100%
Following the births of her son Cassius and daughter Roux, Leroux doubled her scoring efficiency and reestablished herself as one of the NWSL’s most dangerous finishers. Her return stands as one of the league’s defining post-parenthood comebacks.
4. Cristiano Ronaldo — Soccer
Goals: +81.8% | Assists: +69.2%
Ronaldo’s production exploded after the birth of Cristiano Jr., marking the most dramatic male surge in the dataset. Fatherhood coincided with his Real Madrid scoring peak and his evolution into one of the sport’s most prolific finishers.
5. LeBron James — Basketball
PER: +43.7% | PPG: +40.4%
Becoming a father at 19, LeBron’s early-parenthood years map directly onto his ascent into superstardom. With three children born during his rise, his efficiency and scoring climbed sharply as he entered his prime.
6. Stephen Curry — Basketball
Assists: +45.95% | Points: +43.5%
Curry’s emergence as a two-time MVP aligned with the early years of raising his daughters Riley and Ryan. Parenthood paralleled his transformation into the NBA’s most influential shooter.
7. Phil Mickelson — Golf
Earnings: +198.8% | Wins: +50%
Mickelson’s late-career renaissance—including massive earnings spikes—occurred while raising three young children. Parenthood overlapped with his shift into one of golf’s most consistent long-term performers.
8. Alex Morgan — Soccer
Goals: +66.7% | Assists: +50%
After giving birth to her daughter Charlie in 2020, Morgan returned with a revitalized scoring and playmaking profile. Her efficiency in the attacking third spiked significantly in the seasons that followed.
9. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce — Track
Event times: +23.5% | Medals: +19.4%
Fraser-Pryce’s comeback after giving birth to her son Zyon is widely regarded as one of the greatest in track and field history. She returned faster, more decorated, and more dominant well into her 30s.
10. Damian Lillard — Basketball
Assists: +24% | Points: +9%
Lillard’s scoring and playmaking saw a clear lift after becoming a father to his three children. Parenthood aligned with expanded offensive leadership and sustained All-NBA production.
Athletes With Largest Post-Parenthood Declines
These athletes showed consistent, significant drops in performance post-parenthood.
1. Kerri Walsh Jennings — Volleyball
Events: –93.8% | Medals: –100%
The steepest decline in the dataset, Walsh Jennings’ drop came amid age-related wear, significant injuries, and the physical demands of raising three children during her later career stages. Her post-parenthood years aligned with both physical decline and reduced competitive volume.
2. Andy Murray — Tennis
Titles: –73.85% | Win %: –20.67%
Murray’s performance falloff tracks directly with chronic hip injuries and multiple surgeries that overlapped with the births of his four children. Parenthood coincided with one of the most physically challenging chapters of his career.
3. Serena Williams — Tennis
Titles: –52.7% | Win %: –16.1%
Serena’s return after giving birth to Olympia was one of the sport’s most emotionally powerful comebacks, but her statistical output dipped. Postpartum complications and a reduced playing schedule shaped her late-career trajectory.
4. Allyson Felix — Track
Events: –65% | Medals: –69%
Felix’s severe pregnancy complications drastically limited her competition volume in the years that followed. Though she continued to reach podiums, her overall frequency of appearances declined sharply.
5. Misty May-Treanor — Volleyball
Events: –66.7% | Medals: –62.5%
Injuries combined with the demands of motherhood could have reduced May-Treanor’s late-career appearances. The decline reflects fewer competitions and a downturn in medal finishes.
6. Rafael Nadal — Tennis
Win %: –46.9% | Titles: –65%
Nadal’s post-parenthood period has been dominated by chronic injuries and long stretches of recovery. His statistical declines reflect natural late-career wear more than parenthood itself.
7. Tiger Woods — Golf
Wins: –28.6% | Earnings: –20.8%
After becoming a father, Woods faced significant injuries and personal turbulence that reshaped his competitive trajectory. The downturn reflects health and stability issues rather than the effects of parenting.
8. Victoria Azarenka — Tennis
Titles: –57.1% | Win %: –6%
Azarenka’s early parenthood years were marked by injuries and a prolonged custody battle that disrupted her training and travel. These factors contributed to a measurable dip in her performance metrics.
9. Justin Verlander — Baseball
Wins Above Replacement: –43.4% | OPS against: –12.7%
Verlander’s decline mirrors aging curves and injury cycles as he moved deeper into his career after becoming a father. Even as his efficiency dropped, he remained a durable and highly respected presence on the mound.
10. Tom Brady — Football
Passer rating: –26.5% | Yards/Game: –48%
Brady’s numerical decline followed the birth of his children, though his overall career success and championship output continued. The downturn reflects shifts in offensive systems, roles, and late-career transitions more than parenthood alone.
Parenting Is Only One Component
Parenthood doesn’t reshape athletic performance in a single, predictable way—it amplifies whatever forces are already in motion: age, health, support systems, and the demands of a given sport.
The biggest gains appear among early-career parents, especially in team settings and most dramatically in women’s soccer. These athletes are typically in their prime, backed by strong infrastructure, and able to channel parenthood into sharper focus and renewed purpose.
But age and injury complicate the picture. Late-career parents or athletes dealing with chronic injuries, recent recoveries, or unstable training face steeper declines. In individual or travel-heavy sports like tennis, golf, and volleyball, where precision and self-managed routines are essential, the pressures of new parenthood can clash directly with performance needs.
Ultimately, parenthood doesn’t inherently help or hurt—it magnifies context. When an athlete is young, healthy, and supported, the post-parenthood period can spark momentum. When an athlete is aging, injured, or already on the edge of peak form, it can hasten the downturn. The real story isn’t parenthood itself, but the timing, physiology, and environment that shape what comes next.
Methodology
To better understand the impact of parenting on sports’ performance, we curated a list of 40+ athletes across major sports—from football and basketball to tennis, golf, soccer, and track & field. All of them share two things: they became parents after they were in their careers, and they left behind enough reliable statistics for us to measure what changed.
For each athlete, we documented the year they became a parent, then anchored our analysis around that moment. To understand their trajectory, we examined performance in two specific windows:
- The two years leading up to parenthood
- The two years following it
This gives us a clean “before” and “after” snapshot while avoiding the noise of single-season highs or lows.
Because no two sports tell their stories the same way, we relied on each sport’s most trusted metrics. In football, that meant stats like QBR and yards per game; in basketball, points and efficiency ratings; in baseball, WAR and OPS; in tennis and golf, wins, titles, scoring averages, and earnings. Soccer players were tracked through goals, assists, minutes, and match outcomes. Track athletes were judged on times, medals, and podium finishes.
Every athlete received two numbers: a Pre-Parenthood Average and a Post-Parenthood Average for the most relevant metric.
Then came the key question: Did that number rise or fall? We calculated the percentage change to quantify the shift.
To keep things consistent, we drew from gold-standard sources—Pro-Football-Reference, Basketball-Reference, Baseball-Reference, TennisAbstract, FBRef, PGA and LPGA statistics, World Athletics, Olympics.org, and ESPN’s player pages. These databases offer historically reliable numbers across seasons and leagues.
And notably, we excluded anyone who retired in the same year they became a parent, since there’s no meaningful “after” period to measure.
You can view the full dataset here.
Sources
- Pro-Football-Reference – NFL game logs, advanced passing metrics, historical player data
- Basketball-Reference – NBA/NCAA player statistics, efficiency ratings, win-share models
- Baseball-Reference – MLB player performance, WAR calculations, seasonal splits
- Stathead – Deep-dive statistical queries across major sports, including pre/post-event splits
- TennisAbstract & ATP/WTA Archives – Match records, ranking history, win-loss percentages
- FBRef / Transfermarkt – Soccer statistics covering domestic leagues, international play, and minute-by-minute breakdowns
PGA Tour / LPGA Tour Statistics – Scoring averages, finishes, earnings, and season performance trends - World Athletics – Times, rankings, and championship results for track and field athletes
- Olympics.org – Olympic appearances, medals, and event-specific records
- ESPN Player Profiles – Cross-referenced for season summaries and biographical details
- Google News / LexisNexis – Used for sentiment analysis and confirmation of public birth announcements or reporting timelines
