Stephen Curry learns the sidelines

Stephen Curry was at his daughter’s volleyball practice when the requests for photographs started coming. Every thirty seconds, someone else wanted his attention. He had made time to watch her. Now he had to protect it: “Respectfully, not right now, I’m watching my daughter.”¹

He knew both sides of that encounter. As a boy, he had watched strangers approach his father, NBA player Dell Curry, during family dinners. He had seen Dell and his mother, Sonya, work out how to respond. As a father himself, he wanted his children to feel that “who they are is enough,” without a famous family’s expectations pressing down on them.¹

His daughters, Riley and Ryan, would not necessarily want his game, his audience or his idea of a good afternoon. Being their dad meant learning when to share his world with them, and when to stop it from swallowing theirs.

The choice he would take back

Sharing had been the impulse behind one of his most famous parenting moments. In May 2015, he brought two-year-old Riley into a postgame press conference. It was a last-minute decision, he explained, after meeting his wife, Ayesha, and their daughter on his way to the podium. Riley “wasn’t taking no for an answer at that point,” he recalled. The appearance made her an internet sensation.⁶

Ayesha defended the choice that June: their daughter had wanted time with her father after the game. Stephen later explained that wish from his side. He had always wanted his family to experience the things he got to do. He had not understood how much attention that single appearance would bring.^{2, 9}

At home, the parents tried to preserve Riley’s familiar routines around the excitement. Ayesha said bedtime and daily activities stayed consistent; swimming and horseback riding still had a place. There was also time for stories, spontaneous play and the hide-and-seek game Riley called “find me.”²

By the end of 2015, Curry said the family had turned down offers for children’s products carrying Riley’s name. He was already thinking about what the attention would mean to her once she understood it.¹⁵

“If I could take that one back, I probably would,” he said in 2019. The consequence was a level of visibility for his daughter that he now questioned. He described himself and Ayesha learning together as their family became increasingly recognizable. Ayesha also spoke about regretting the exposure in 2023. He wanted the children to treat people well and keep their own success in perspective.^{9, 3}

Protecting them did not mean refusing every new experience. Ayesha said she and Stephen kept discussing how to balance privacy with independence. She described agreeing to a daughter’s school trip as one of those choices.³

He remembers the missed shots

At nine, Curry missed two free throws in a championship game; the first could have tied the score. Decades later, the feelings were still vivid. “My parents were very supportive of me during those moments,” he recalled. Their response helped him become less afraid of failing.⁵

He carries that memory into parenting. His children should try things even when they might fail, he says, concentrating on the effort and attention they can control.⁵

“Make sure they feel loved while you’re guiding them as a parent,” he said.¹⁴

The family’s reminder was “control your WABA”: words, actions, behavior and attitude. The children knew it well enough to repeat it back sarcastically. He hoped it would help with difficulties now and become something they could laugh about together when they were grown.⁵

Other expectations came from his own upbringing. In 2025, he described homework and chores coming before privileges, a rule he and Ayesha had kept. But with a teenager and a toddler in the same household, “each one has to be parented a little differently.” At his games, he relaxed the rules because he wanted the children to enjoy themselves.²¹

A future he does not get to pick

When Riley was six, Curry asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. “A basketball player cook.” She had previously considered makeup and horseback riding, so he enjoyed the answer without treating it as a commitment. She asked her parents to set up a camera while she pretended to host a cooking show, making food and slime. He also described helping her practice dribbling with her left hand.⁴

He linked his daughters’ futures to a larger hope: “their gender does not feel like a rulebook.” He wanted Riley and Ryan to have fair pay and genuine choices. He credited Sonya and Ayesha, whose own work and ambitions had shaped his thinking. Raising daughters had made the question personal without making it only a concern for fathers of girls. He had hosted a camp for 200 girls, and wanted his newborn son, Canon, to learn to listen to women and challenge limiting expectations too.⁴

When eight-year-old Riley later told him she did not want to play basketball, Curry asked why. She had seen him come home with a cast, protective padding and sprained ankles. She did not want to get hurt. Hearing his working life explained back to him that way, he apologized for frightening her away from the sport.⁷

By November 2022, he said neither daughter wanted to play. Instead, they asked about women working in the Warriors’ organization: “What’s her role? What does she do?” He pointed to the woman overseeing the team’s basketball administration and player programs as someone whose work the girls might want to do. He was finding other people in his world whose work might interest them.⁸

In 2023, he described Riley eagerly getting ready for volleyball practice and passing a ball around the house. He recognized some of his own focus in her and wanted to encourage it. His younger children, he said, were still trying a little of everything.¹⁶

At home, he is Dad

Curry described the distinction his children made between the player and the parent. He explained that the jersey made him Stephen, but “when I’m at home I’m dad.” He wanted to watch his documentary with them so they could see the years before they were born and understand more of what mattered to him.¹³

Ayesha’s account of him at home supplied a smaller picture. When the girls were little, she described him getting onto the floor with them and playing dress-up. She also described the work of getting children out of the house: having everybody packed, in the car and wearing socks was an achievement.^{11, 12}

Keeping the family together required travel as well as time at home. In 2015, Curry said two-month-old Ryan had already taken ten flights. He credited Ayesha for being willing to travel with him and admitted they were still learning how to manage it. Ayesha was working too, filming cooking demonstrations with a baby in her arms or Riley playing with Lego at her feet.²²

School drives could give him time with Riley, and they sang together in the car. In 2018, Curry recalled a first-grade parent-teacher conference at which he learned how she had introduced herself to her new teacher: “I’m sure you know my name.” Curry replied: “We’re going to have to keep an eye on that!”²³

Singing together also became part of a public video in July 2019. Curry drove Riley and Ryan to a surprise ice cream stop while they sang along to Hamilton. He said they did this often; it was simply the first time it had been filmed. The outing was made for a sponsored series by his production company and a carmaker.^{19, 20}

Sometimes the schedule simply won. After a Team USA game in Las Vegas in July 2024, Curry used a televised interview to wish Ryan a happy ninth birthday. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there,” he said, and told her he missed her.¹⁰

He used FaceTime while traveling and prized practices and carpools in the offseason. He valued sharing the Bible stories his parents had read to him, but also followed the children’s own interests at bedtime. They brought home books such as Dork Diaries and read to him. “They’re the storytellers and I’m the audience.” He enjoyed listening to what they had chosen.⁵

In October 2025, he arranged a special outing for thirteen-year-old Riley: she and Ayesha joined him in Los Angeles for a Warriors game against the Lakers. During warmups, Riley sent a ball from the stands to an assistant coach, who passed it to Curry. Her father finished the sequence with a running three-pointer from the corner.^{17, 18}

Afterward, Curry said having Riley there brought back his own childhood around Dell’s games. He had once been the boy watching his father play. Now he was the father finding a way for his daughter to share the experience.¹⁷

At his daughter’s volleyball practice, Curry was protecting a quieter kind of family time. He had come to watch his daughter do something of her own. A photograph would only take a moment, but another request would follow. The father in the room needed to be allowed to stay a spectator.