A Sportsman with a Backbone

For professional athletes, there is ultimately but one goal: to win.

Not to win just any game, but the game — that grand finale championship game of their chosen field. Whether it’s the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, or the World Series, nothing can stop a determined athlete from competing for the highest medal, and the money, fame and prestige that accompanies victory.

For an athlete to miss his shot at crowning glory, he must be out of his mind. Therefore, Andy Murray must be out of his mind.

[lz_ndn video= 29641370]

The tennis superstar has announced that he might skip the Australian Open next month, the first of four tournaments that make up the “Grand Slam” (the others are the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open).

What could possibly compel this man to pass up the chance at becoming king of the court?

For Murray, it’s family. His wife is due to deliver their son just weeks after the start of the tournament. When asked what he would do if the first-time mom goes into premature labor, Murray didn’t think twice.

“I’d go home,” he said. “For sure.”

For all the ordinary, non-Herculean husbands out there, skipping work obligations to be bed-side during birth is a no-brainer. For athletes, taking temporary paternity leave can present a mother of a dilemma. With dad duty demanded for those precious few hours, missing a big game is too risky for most. Even the miracle of childbirth is hard to justify.

There are coaches and contracts to consider, fans and sponsors to serve, and the crippling weight of cultural pressure on athletes to be athletes before anything else. Such pressure has permeated even college sports, where most everyone knows that the term “student athlete” is an adjective and then a noun. The title “athlete” represents a core identity that transcends all other social or familial duties.

The fact that Murray, without a hint of hesitation, so boldly and bluntly announced his intent to put family above fame and fortune reflects a kind of character often lacking in professional athletes. And the fact that his decision actually made news — and will probably spark heated debate in sports circles around the globe — reflects the backward priorities of our sports-obsessed culture.

The move also points to the poisonous attitude that seems to have permeated modern professional athletics — that the job of the athlete is to placate the public’s demands and desires, and that the competitor’s private life takes a backseat to his public persona. It is that mindset that sports trumps all, and it recalls an attitude seen before in Ancient Rome’s infamous arenas. The gladiators, like American athletes, were seen not as human beings, but as entertainers, whose sole purpose was to delight and distract the citizenry, to fight and to win, or else die trying.

Today’s sports heroes may not be fighting for their lives in the Coliseum, but they are nonetheless fighting for their dignity and humanity.

Most sports fans, especially young boys, see professional athletes like Murray as superhuman — godlike in their athletic ability, and rewarded as such with mind-boggling money and fame. Yet along with a contract detailing the prime years owed in exchange for a bunch of zeroes in a salary comes an unwritten social contract: Perform or perish.

An athlete’s life also comes with a hefty price tag. Athletes are treated like commodities under the thumb of coaches and executives. Shackled to inflexible schedules, they are scoffed at for scheduling personal time that might include a family milestone like the birth of a child. Instead, they are expected to perform at all costs and without fail whenever public duties require.

Related: The ‘Uncoachable’ Kid

Celebrity athletes like Murray have a large and loyal fan base, many of whom will be deeply disappointed — perhaps even angry — if Murray drops his racquet to jet home. But the younger, more impressionable fans undoubtedly will benefit from hearing about his decision to choose family first. Admiring an athlete for his talent, drive and discipline is one thing. Learning about his pro-family and pro-fatherhood values can have a profound effect on a budding young athlete’s perspective.

So for all of Murray’s true fans, perhaps the best way to show their appreciation and admiration of Murray this Grand Slam season is to encourage and applaud him, and to support his decision to prioritize his wife and family.

Whether Murray walks off the court and into the hospital to sacrifice athletic glory for family, he has already gained a far greater glory, the kind he can take to the grave — the glory and virtue of being the type of man, and the type of human, who manages his priorities undeterred, even when the stakes couldn’t be higher.