If one of the world’s fastest men has a baby with one of the world’s fastest women, will they have a baby that is 2 Fast 2 Furious for words? We may have to wait to know for sure, but by about 2020, we can get the answer from Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones.
Sprinter Marion Jones, who won three gold medals at the 2000 Olympics, gave birth to baby Tim in late June. The father is Tim Montgomery, the world 100-meter record holder. Daddy Tim has been quoted as saying people expect tiny Tim to be a speed demon.
Will he? Do athletes who marry athletes typically produce little athletes? And if so, could you order up an athletic baby by asking for one at a sperm bank?
The answer to all of the above is a qualified “maybe.” Nobody can offer exact odds on the importance of genes in athleticism, but everyone admits that they are important–to some degree.
“The research makes it clear that the old saying is true: Choose your parents wisely,” said Ken Jakalski, who co-owns Faster Than Gravity training facility in Naperville. “It’s the American way to suggest that through hard work you can make up for [what is lacking in] genes, but there really are some limits.”
Jakalski said trainers can only “nurture what nature has given,” especially in sports–running, for instance–that rely on specific physical traits. He points out that thousands of people train in a similar way for a marathon, but only one wins.
“Watch two kids who are trained in the same way,” said Jakalski, who also coaches track at Lisle High School. “One will do better than the other. What accounts for these differences? The truth is, if you want your kids to be great athletes, marry a great athlete.”
Not so fast, says Dr. Sherwin Ho, a sports medicine specialist and surgeon at the University of Chicago. Asked about the chances that great athletes produce great athletes, he replies, “The odds are neutral or better; I don’t think there’s any predictability to it.”
As for baby Tim, Ho said, “The only thing you can hang your hat on is that the child will inherit some of those good physical tools that the parents have. Height, proportion of legs to torso, fat-to-muscle ratio, the makeup of the muscles, fast-twitch muscle fibers compared to slow-twitch muscle fibers–those traits are inherited.”
Given the importance of those inherited characteristics, could a woman choose a sperm donor who has athletic traits she wants her child to have?
“If a client is looking for a guy that’s athletic, yes, I could tell them which guy would be their choice,” said Joanne Kaminski, director of Midwest Sperm Bank in Downers Grove, “but I’ve never had a client that specifically asked for a donor based on athleticism.”
Donors fill out a 20-page form that includes family medical history, physical attributes, diseases, diet and exercise routine, alcohol and tobacco use, educational background, scholarships received, athletic abilities and sports played.
“I’ve often wondered myself if you could go to famous athletes to be anonymous donors,” Kaminski said, “but you couldn’t really advertise that this was a professional football player, because you wouldn’t be able to guarantee confidentiality.”
All right, so maybe you can’t go order up a mini-McMahon with a junior Jordan and a small Sosa on the side, but doesn’t environment count for a lot?
B.J. Luke’s family would indicate so. Luke is head football coach at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora; like his father, he played college football; wife Holly is a college football coach’s daughter; his son R.J. played pre-season football with the Tennessee Titans this year; and his daughter Ashley plays basketball at DePaul.
But wait–he also has two daughters, Megan and Heather, who didn’t play sports.
“They were involved in music and theater,” Luke said, “and my wife and I supported that and found ourselves going to concerts and theater productions.”
All four kids grew up around gyms and practice fields and go to their siblings’ games whenever possible. “I just had two kids who were very athletic, and two who weren’t,” he said. “To play at a high level, you have to have the ability to perform, and that’s just God-given.”
So back to baby Tim. Will he be speedy? Dr. Pamela Derstine, a molecular geneticist at Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine, believes there are too many factors to call this race.
“The fact that the mother runs very fast and the father runs very fast means that the baby has a collection of genes that potentially contribute to his ability as a world-class sprinter,” she said. “Mathematically, that raises the possibility that the offspring inherit some of these genes.”
Even our response to our environment, she added, is influenced by our genes.
“There are genes that govern such traits as attitudes and emotions,” Derstine said. “So baby Tim might have genes that give him superior bone and muscles and genes that predispose his body to respond well to training. But he could also have inherited a tendency not to listen to Mom and Dad.”
Other unpredictable factors, physician Ho pointed out, are nutrition, injuries and everything else that happens in the environment. “Another part of the equation is less tangible things like motivation and other things you can’t put in a test tube,” he said. “Champions have an inner drive–we don’t know who will get it and why they get it, but it’s a special mind-set that makes them rise above their cohorts.”
There are simply too many variables, he said, to predict whether the Montgomery-Jones union has run up a future supersprinter.
“Would I put my money on it?” Ho asked. “No.”
`He has your eyes . . . ‘
Not every woman gets to have David Letterman’s baby (or would even really care to). But some women get pretty specific about what they’re looking for in a man . . . OK, in a man’s sperm. Joanne Kaminski, director of Midwest Sperm Bank in Downers Grove, passed along the top five characteristics women seek from donors:
1) Physical traits. Tall is in, Kaminski said. “Most women want a donor who is 5 foot 8 or taller. They also like to match the color of the hair and eyes to their partner’s coloring.”
Women often go for physical matches so outsiders don’t know the baby is from donor sperm, she said. Single women might match their partner’s appearance for an emotional connection. But sometimes women just go for a “look.” Kaminski said she has donors who resemble Ashton Kutcher, Matt Damon and “a cleaned-up Johnny Depp.” (The sperm bank is at 4333 Main St., Downers Grove.)
2) Nationality. Women often match the nationality of their partner.
3) Education. For smart sperm, the bank uses only donors who have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
4) Health. Sperm shoppers can read the medical background of the donor’s family for three generations.
5) Interests. Some like to match up with, say, fellow art or music lovers.
— V.E.
