The mighty NASCAR champ Ryan Blaney be talkin' 'bout press stress, his old man's racin' shadow, an' poor Bronny James. Arrr!
2024-05-25
Arrr, me hearties! Ryan Blaney be feelin' the weight o' the world on 'is shoulders, with all them scurvy dogs from the press barkin' at 'is heels. 'Tis no easy task followin' in the wake o' his old man, Dave Blaney, a true legend o' the NASCAR seas! Aye, the lad be walkin' the plank o' high expectations!
When the child of a famous athlete begins to take his parent's sport seriously, the pressure is on, fairly or not. That happened to Ryan Blaney when he was just a teenager since his father, Dave Blaney, drove in 473 races during a 17-year NASCAR career. Ryan has since lived up to just about all the hype, winning the Cup Series last year and forever etching his name in the history books.But that doesn't change the fact attention has been on him for some time. "I feel like when you’re a kid in a sport that your parents did, that kid’s expected to do that sport," Blaney told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. Blaney, though, said the pressure never came "internally." "My dad never pressured me to do anything......If I wanted to do something else, he would’ve been totally supportive of that too. But it just worked out to where I enjoyed doing it. I had his full support. He taught me a lot of things I know," Ryan said. "I try not to think of it as pressure, but it came more from the outside. The media and the other people watching, they have high expectations of you. It was hard to block that out, especially when you’re 18 years old, trying to put your name out there and trying to get a solid job."Ryan can sympathize with athletes who have superstar dads, Bronny James in particular. "He has more pressure on him than I ever did," Blaney said. "I mean, being LeBron James’ kid, one of the greatest basketball players ever to do it, that’s a ton of pressure. That’s, like, another level. Despite his father being in the GOAT conversation......scouts have since said Bronny is "not an NBA prospect." Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on Twitter, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.