Wednesday, March 31, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
You and I are typical, hardcore American sports fans.
We like football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf and boxing, but we couldn't care less about professional soccer.
We don't know when the soccer season begins or ends, or what leagues are still even playing.
We know soccer is the most popular sport in the world but we'd have to think twice to name a single player, and then most of us would stumble after coming up with that Beckham guy from England.
But there's a chance our sphere of interests is about to expand. There's a chance we're going to become captivated by Freddy Adu.
Adu is 14 years old and, despite being born in Ghana, he is in position to elevate the sport of soccer in America unlike any player before him. He's Pele with a slightly different accent.
Adu is profiled in this week's Sports Illustrated and he was the subject of an additional profile that aired Sunday as part of CBS' 60 Minutes. In both instances he came across as suitably humble, amazingly clever and divinely talented.
It's clear he has what it takes to become a multifaceted superstar.
It's equally clear the sport in America has hitched its wagon to him.
Adu will make his pro debut on national television Saturday when his D.C. United team hosts San Jose at RFK Stadium in Washington. Adu comes into the game not only as the youngest athlete on any U.S. professional sports team, but as the highest paid player in Major League Soccer.
He's getting $500,000 this season, plus what looks to be millions more in endorsement deals.
Yet he's relying on his mother to drive him to practice.
Adu is the latest in what is becoming a long line of teen prodigies to turn pro, joining female golfers Michelle Wie (14) and Aree Song (19) and basketball players Carmello Anthony (19) and LeBron James (19) as recently mined gems. With Wie and Song having finished fourth and second, respectively, in last weekend's LPGA tournament and with Anthony and James locked in a heated battle for the NBA's rookie of the year award, it's clear that youth is being served.
Never have so many wonderfully gifted youngsters had such a significant impact on the professional sports scene. While Jennifer Capriati was 14 when she reached the semifinals of the 1990 French Open and Tara Lipinski was 14 in 1997 when she became the youngest figure skater to be ranked No. 1 in the world, today's wave of teenage stars is quantitative and diverse.
Adu, who has also appeared on the David Letterman show, is only 5-foot-7 and 148 pounds but he's so big that D.C. United is likely to play to an endless streak of sellouts. All 24,607 seats that will be made available in a downsized RFK for Saturday's game will be taken.
Major League Soccer badly needs a player of Adu's stature, if for no other reason than to distinguish it from the Major Indoor Soccer League that is still in the midst of its season. Ordinarily, neither league rates so much as a mention in the nation's newspapers but that will change with Adu on the scene.
He came to America with his family in '97 and there has been some concern about his supposed age, and, in all honesty, he looks more like he's 18. But any questions about his age are moot now that he's playing professionally.
Leslie Stahl, who interviewed Adu for 60 Minutes, took the tack that Adu may run into serious physical opposition during the MLS season and that a jealousy factor may come into play. For sure, the evidence that does exist shows that Adu has been targeted for inordinate physical contact at prior levels of play.
But I think Stahl was off the mark and that Adu will be treated in a like manner to Wayne Gretzky, who was so obviously just what hockey needed when he arrived in Edmonton in 1980 that players from opposing teams allowed him a wide berth. Gretzky may have had a tough guy or two on the team to protect him, but, in reality, he didn't need protecting because everyone in the league saw him as a priceless asset who was off-limits when it came to the usual spearing, elbowing and hassling that is directed at most rookies and rising stars.
Adu, I think, will get the same kind of respect and treatment from MLS players who have to feel he is their ticket to greater salaries, publicity and attention.
There's a saying that seems perfectly apropos: A rising tide raises all boats.
Adu may make a fortune along the way, but he's also in a position to do the same for everyone associated with pro soccer.
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