The soccer mom or the racing driver dad are common figures in popular culture.
Ambitious parents often stand behind sporting talent, and it is not uncommon for them to rate their children's potential higher than it actually is.
Richard Williams is said to have known even before his daughters Venus and Serena were born that he would one day be the father of tennis stars of excellence.
Anyone who follows this legend a little will soon come across a video on YouTube in which Richard Williams recommends his daughters – one just eight, the other seven years old – for training with tennis coach Vic Braden in 1989.
At the time, the Williams family lived in Compton, California, what the head of the family himself called “the worst ghetto”.
Sport should be the way to a better future.
And that's how it happened, as we all know: Venus and Serena Williams have dominated women's tennis for decades, they got rich and they became role models.
Richard Williams got a slightly different image: "Everyone says I'm crazy." What might appear to be the characteristics of a visionary educator was seen by others as a confirmation of latent racist clichés.
In the movie King Richard, Richard Williams is so thoroughly rehabilitated it's almost a screen memory.
Because the project to bring two daughters to Wimbledon and there to the greatest victories will probably not have developed quite as clearly as the director Reinaldo Marcus Green, the screenwriter Zach Baylin and the actor Will Smith in the leading role are doing now present.
A glance at Richard Williams' autobiography, aptly titled "Black and White" and which tells of significantly more tension than is allowed in "King Richard", is enough.
The film clearly has an edifying character and follows the old tradition of liberal Hollywood, which resolves social conflicts into exemplary individualism.
Will Smith is a far cry from Richard Williams' always slightly rough-and-tumble appearance, and in every other respect, too, this is a typical case of a superstar enjoying the role of the misjudged.
Smith plays Williams in a mixture of endearing disgust and holy fool.
"King Richard" confidently rejects the temptations of the industry, which is already waving millions of checks while the daughters still have to go to school.
Because the happy ending is always known, many of the moral victories of the unflinching life coach are hardly worth mentioning.
Sports films often have a monotonous dramaturgy anyway, but here any obstacles are almost completely left out in favor of an Afro-American model family.
There are now six Oscar nominations.
Will Smith will be hard to beat for Best Actor.