Since When Can’t Sports Stars Get Married?

To my surprise, though, instead of talking about his impressive 2009 season where he won two grand slam titles and made it to the finals of the two other ones, they were instead talking about his personal life, namely the fact that instead of being a single bachelor he decided to get married last year. They were actually making fun of him for settling down, wearing one of those men’s wedding bands, and having kids instead of pulling a Joe Namath and playing the field for a one night stand.

Is this what it’s come to? Why are we mocking our athletes (and movie stars and music stars, etc.) for getting married while they are still famous? It’s not like Federer married some random chick he met at a famous nightclub. He married his business manager who he had been dating for five years. How come Beyonce can sing a hit song about a women wanting a wedding ring from his boyfriend as a feminist anthem (I won’t even get into that), but a famous male athlete get’s chastised for settling down? He’s the greatest tennis player of all time and arguably the greatest ambassador the sport has, he’s earned whatever he wants to do.

The talk show hosts were pretty much intimating that he should be dating supermodels and not worrying about changing diapers (Federer just had twins). Wouldn’t it be more distracting for a famous athlete to date and then have to deal with breakups? One of the things that make’s Federer so great is that he always seems so focused on the court. Doesn’t having a stable relationship help him on that? While dating a string of models is nice for some people, if you find someone who makes you happy why not settle down? This guy makes tens of million dollars a year, I’m sure he’s not worried about status.

But anyway, why is this our business? Don’t we complain about celebrities who change beaus and often as they change clothes? So why are we mocking a guy for doing the exact opposite? Shouldn’t he be a role model? “Hey, here’s a guy who does the right thing on the court and off it.” Not that getting married is necessarily the wrong or right thing, but someone shouldn’t be looked down at for doing that in his mid twenties. He just came off one of the best years of his career. Obviously married life is treating him pretty well.