Is the relative success of younger siblings from what older siblings taught them, or taught their parents?

Patriots Quarterback, Drake Maye, was the youngest of four athletic brothers.  In keeping with the attention on the 2026 Super Bowl, Rustin Dodd of The Athletic wrote an article, “Is the younger sibling effect real? Why Drake Maye and others benefit from being the ‘runt’.”

However, the goal of this book is not to confirm what our society widely believes, but to dig a bit deeper to unearth things parents can use to help their children that they may not realize.   Rather than examining the potential success factors that younger children derive from their older siblings, this article focuses on the potentially greater effect of what their parents learned from their older siblings. 

But first, we’ll start with Dodd's article.  It introduced several studies showing that being born later (or last) in a family can increase the likelihood of athletic success.   Interestingly, three of the athletes he mentioned, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Serena Williams, are covered in “It’s No Fun Standing in Right Field” on topics other than being the youngest sibling.

Given that you cannot run experiments on raising children, there are never any definite answers, only theories that are supported by often conflicting evidence.  For instance, the article noted that some researchers suggest younger siblings are more motivated because they engage in more comparisons with their older siblings, which can increase what psychologists call “ego orientation.”  Yet a wealth of research from other researchers suggests that great athletes are internally driven and that the most successful focus on personal improvement, learning, and mastery, a pattern known as a “process orientation.”  This idea is the foundation of Carol Dweck’s best-selling book on Growth Mindset. 

The article mentioned several other theories: older siblings provide more opportunities for unstructured free play, and younger siblings develop earlier by playing with older siblings. Older parents are often more stable and possess more resources. Early exposure to sports as a spectator can increase a younger sibling’s confidence, sense of belonging, and motivation.    However, the main focus was that effective learning was “situated,” involving group work around shared interests and learning by working alongside more experienced peers. 

The childhood of my boys supports many of these theories.   They were constantly playing together, and my younger son, Mark, would push himself to keep up with his older brother, Eric.  Mark told everyone at Eric’s wedding rehearsal dinner why his big brother was responsible for his success. 

If my boys' birth order were different, we are convinced neither would have had the same success.  Eric was the consummate role model, diligently following every coach's instruction during practice and then practicing independently at home.  As a child, one of Mark’s coaches called him the “lazy one” and others “goof” because of his lack of effort and attention to instruction, and because he never practiced on his own until he matured in high school. 

Given this evidence of learning from older siblings, why consider parental learning at all?  Perhaps the most compelling reason is that evidence of parents' impact on success dwarfs that of sibling order.  Walter Gretzky was a hockey coach, and his son Wayne became the greatest hockey player.  Earl Woods was a former college baseball player who took up golf.   His son, Tiger, became pretty good at golf when an arm injury reportedly prevented him from excelling at baseball like his dad. 

Examples of children of former athletes are everywhere.  Barry Bonds, Stephen Curry, and Peyton Manning, whose fathers were all successful professionals, are but the tip of the iceberg.  Child prodigies with accomplished parents are not limited to sports.  Examples such as musical composer Wolfgang Mozart appear in virtually every domain. 

Many refuse to look deeper because genetics confirms their belief.  The Maye brothers are Exhibit A.  Each is 6’ 4” and taller.  Exceptional height is a critical success factor in basketball, the sport that two of his older brothers played in college, and in pitching, the college position for his third older brother.  Similarly, short quarterbacks are challenged to see over the linemen blocking in front of them.  Case closed.   Or so it seems.

Let’s look at the arguments against these theories.  There are college basketball teams across the country with rosters filled with players who were taller than Maye and his brothers.  But of all those unusually tall men, only about fifteen get to become national champions.  Maye’s oldest brother was one of them.  Since Drake Maye came up short in the Super Bowl, he is still behind two of his older brothers when it comes to winning national championships. 

If younger sibling success is a result of picking up skills from playing against older brothers or early specialization, why did Drake Maye’s success come in football and not basketball or baseball?  Furthermore, if learning to play against siblings is so important, how did Drake’s oldest brother get good enough to become a basketball national champion at North Carolina?

John Wooden knew a thing or two about high-level college basketball.  Wooden was the first college basketball player to be named an All-American three times, and the UCLA team he coached won 10 NCAA championships in 12 years. During this period, his teams set an NCAA men's basketball record by winning 88 consecutive games.

Wooden attributed his players' success to superior coaching.  Not his coaching, but their parents'.  As he wrote in his book of observations, “Parents are coaches, the first coaches a child has.  Too many parents expect the coaches and teachers at school to do what they are not doing at home.  The parents must set the foundation early.  It is often too late by the time a child goes to school.”

Just as great athletes and musicians are made, not born, so too are parents.  The more children a parent has, the greater the opportunity for learning.  Given the outsized role parents play in their children's success, it would be extremely surprising if children with older siblings weren’t far more successful.

The Williams family provides a compelling example.  In her biography, Serena described her eldest sister as a non-athlete, her next-oldest sister as athletic but not a tennis player, and her middle sister as a “strong high school player.”  Her older sister Venus became a number-one-ranked player, and Serena became one of the greatest tennis players of all time.   More so than the steady increase in the tennis ability of each child, it’s the propagation of tennis knowledge within the family that makes it so compelling. 

Serena’s three oldest sisters were born before her parents, Richard Williams and Oracene Price, ever picked up a tennis racquet.  Richard sought out instruction on how to play tennis.  He then taught his wife and children how to play.  By the time Serena became established on the professional circuit, Oracene’s knowledge had grown to the point that Serena wrote that her mom was the coach she often called to help her figure out a problem with her tennis game. 

Mark benefited far more from increased parental learning than he likely realizes.  Our knowledge of coaching increased rapidly through our experience with Eric.  Other parents coached Eric during his first year of organized sports.  But either my wife or I always coached Mark because we realized we could do much better.  Mark was able to play in better leagues two years earlier in every sport.  He had played in developmentally superior Hispanic soccer leagues two years earlier. 

As with the Williams parents, who likely became aware of injuries after Isha’s back derailed her career, we were constantly monitoring Mark’s pain.  When Eric was ten, the onset of Sever's disease (it’s a poor name for inflammation in the foot due to bones temporarily growing faster than the surrounding tissue can adjust) disrupted his play for several months.  When Mark faced the same growth issue, it was barely a problem for him because we were monitoring it and had gained experience mitigating it. 

Similarly, I could never have created the individualized workout that helped Mark excel when he decided to focus on soccer in high school without the knowledge I gained from observing the LA Galaxy’s athletic development training or from helping to coach when Eric moved to a top club.  One thing that makes the Development Model different is that it seeks to give parents greater informed influence over their children’s development, rather than limiting them to the role of helpless bystanders with a bank account.