Posted on: Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Watching prodigies at play
| • | There's much Adu about being 15 |
| • | Adu wouldn't mind a round with Wie |
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
The way it goes in sports on O'ahu this week, if you're 16 years old, you're in danger of being over the hill.
If you have a driver's license, you could be old news. Been to the prom, you're practically, well, ancient.
The marquee and buzz this week are the province of a couple of fresh-faced 15-year-olds, Freddy Adu and Michelle Wie, who can't even drive to their events but are nevertheless driving the interest.
While others their age are playing in the state basketball championship at Blaisdell Arena, Adu and Wie will be kicking it and teeing up against the pros, some of whom will be twice their age.
Adu will play in the Aloha Soccer Cup — matching his MLS team, D.C. United, against the Los Angeles Galaxy in an exhibition — Saturday night at Aloha Stadium. And Wie will be in the SBS Open at Turtle Bay, an LPGA Tour event that begins tomorrow.
It is a wonder that the mayor hasn't declared it "Prodigy Week."
Of course, Adu has already been a seven-figure pro for more than a year now, and Wie, for just about as long, has played the partial schedule of one.
Today's sports futures market, where the race is on to find and cash in on the next Tiger Woods or future Pele, crowns its stars-in-waiting fresh from the crib and waits for no one. So, without much ado, here they come.
How young are Adu and Wie? Let's put it this way: If Wie wasn't playing in the SBS, she could get in free under the tournament's youth category. If she could get a pass from her 10th-grade classes for the day, that is.
Even in the MLS, which has signed a handful of players under 17 since its 1996 beginning, Adu's arrival at $500,000 was remarkable. It made him the youngest pro in a U.S. major league sport in a century, matching Fred Chapman, who joined the Philadelphia A's in 1887 at age 14.
The thing is, Adu could have cashed in even sooner. After touring Europe with a junior team, the story goes he was offered $250,000 by a club in Italy, later raised to $750,000. And, that was before he turned 12.
That's just the half of it — the non-endorsement half — for Adu, who has a $1 million deal with Nike and commercials for Campbell's and Sierra Mist among others.
Where the bidding would go for Wie, were she to turn pro now — $5 million, $10 million ... — is anybody's guess. For the moment, the LPGA has a minimum age of 18 to play full time on its tour. But should Wie win one of its eight events she is playing this year, that could change in a hurry.
Watching Adu and Wie this week, even for the young, it is enough to make you feel positively old.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
