In 1963, a Canadian man named Walter helped his two-year-old son lace up his skates for the very first time. Walter taught his son to skate on the rink he had made in the backyard of his home in Brantford, Ontario. Affectionately dubbed the “Wally Coliseum,” it was the same rink where Walter taught his son to play hockey, a sport he took to quickly. Walter’s son would go on to become the leading point-scorer in the history of the NHL. Walter’s son is “the great one.” Walter’s son is Wayne Gretzky.

Thought by many of his peers, sports journalists and NHL execs to be the greatest hockey player of all time, Gretzky is a classic example of a child prodigy. At six he was playing on a team with 10-year-olds, outperforming them despite his age and size. By 10 he was attracting the attention of local media for scoring an astonishing 378 goals in one season. In his first NHL season, playing for the Oilers, he won league MVP. He won league MVP the next seven years in a row.

Technically speaking, prodigy is someone under the age of 12 who is able to do something, be it piano or math or, in this case, athletics, at an adult level. Being the parent of a child who is exceptionally gifted at a particular sport is a complicated matter. It is a constant struggle to balance fostering their gift without applying undue pressure (a “hockey dad” can be just as wretched a creature as a “dance mom”). Then there’s the issue of protecting your child from the misguided negative attention and jealousy received from other players and, in the worst cases, their parents (Gretzky was booed by the parents of other players in his Brantford hockey league. His entire family eventually relocated to Toronto to escape the negativity). If you have other children who don’t possess the same exemplary skills, that further complicates things. Plus, for parents with sensitive egos, there’s that awkward realization that they are not “letting” their 6-year-old win.

If Gretzky is the poster child of sports prodigies, Walter is, for the most part, the poster adult of fathers of sports prodigies. Not only did he teach his son to play hockey, he honed his skills with clever drills and attended all his games. He kept his son grounded, insisting Wayne finish high school and not live extravagantly, despite his growing paychecks. Walter had other sons, who were never neglected – they had their hockey debuts at “Wally Coliseum” as well. Wayne credits his success to his father, who went on to write two books about raising a prodigy: On Family, Hockey and Healing (2003) and Gretzky: From Backyard Rink to Stanley Cup (1985). That lingering caveat, “for the most part,” alludes to the fact that Walter may have at times applied pressure on his son a little too forcefully – Wayne revealed to the LA Times that his father would never accept an “average game” from the young hockey player.

Another father who penned two books about raising a sports prodigy is Earl Woods, father of philandering golf legend Tiger (Earl’s books have similarly cheesy titles: Training a Tiger: A Father’s Guide to Raising a Winner in Both Golf and Life, and Playing Through: Straight Talk on Hard Work, Big Dreams and Adventures with Tiger). Like Walter Gretzky, the late Earl Woods introduced his son to the sport that would make him famous (and wealthy beyond all belief) at age two. At three Tiger scored 48 in nine holes at the tricky Cypress Navy Course and at eight he won the 9-10 boys competition at the Junior World Golf Championships. Tiger first beat his father on the course at age 11.

But unlike Walter Gretzky, Earl and his wife, Tilda, did not demand excellence. Rudy Duran, Tiger’s golf instructor from ages 5 to 10, told the New York Times that Tiger’s parents did not set out to raise someone who many consider to be the greatest golf player of all time. While Earl was more than happy to foster his son’s gift, coaching him throughout his early career, helping him turn professional and sign lucrative sponsorship deals, he never pushed the steadfastly determined Tiger. As Duran told the Times, “They put no extra value on playing golf. Tiger was the motivated one and Earl and Tilda were great at providing an environment of unconditional love, an environment where he could excel. They were very consistent in their reaction whether Tiger finished first in a tournament or 10^th.”

While Tiger and Gretzky are perhaps our most famous examples of athletic wunderkinds, there are plenty of others. Take Chinese Olympic gold medalist Fu Mingxia, who won the diving world championship at 12-years-old, making her the youngest world champion in any sport, or Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci who won gold three times at the 1976 Olympics at just 14. Martial arts star Jet Li also falls into the prodigal category – he won a slew of gold medals at the All China Games when he was 12.

But what draws us to the stories of Wayne Gretzky and Tiger Woods is the role their fathers played in their careers. These are parents who saw in their children exceptional gifts, extremely early on and created an environment of support, love and, perhaps most importantly, fun. Despite the fact that these young athletes performed like adults, they were still children who, like all children, deserve to experience the joy of sport.

As Andrew Solomon astutely points out in his New York Times piece, “How to Raise a Prodigy,” “Given that there is no consensus about how to raise ordinary children, it is not surprising there is none about how to raise remarkable children.” Solomon also notes that if a prodigal child is “left to their own devices,” they don’t obtain awards and accolades before they reach their teens. But it seems as though the parents who make their child’s chosen sport a choice are the ones who end up penning bestsellers about raising the greats.