Last Saturday in an English Premier League matchup, I watched as Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling fired a low laser into the far left corner of the net past Reading’s sprawling goalkeeper, Alex McCarthy. The commentators excitedly announced that this was Sterling’s first league goal and the first of many more to come in the years ahead. A quick Wikipedia search of Sterling led me to the fact that he is only 17, two months younger than me.
Teenage prodigies are nothing new in sports, but the athletes we know and relate to represent the very top of the pyramid. Sterling moved to London from Jamaica when he was 5 in hopes of playing professionally. But this is too much to place on his shoulders at his age.
Lionel Messi moved to Spain when he was signed to FC Barcelona’s youth academy at 11. But his archrival, Cristiano Ronaldo, signed with Sporting CP’s youth team when he was 12 before becoming a household name when he transferred to Manchester United. The same phenomenon holds true in other sports as well.
Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett all skipped college and broke into the NBA less than a year removed from high school. And let’s not forget about one of the most reputed athletes of our generation, LeBron James, who made the same decision.
But many teenage stars are tasting success at the pro level while enrolled in high school. Golfers Beau Hossler and Andy Zhang both made splashes at the U.S. Open this June. Hossler, 17, led outright midway through the second round, while 14-year-old Zhang was the youngest ever to participate at the Open. Olympic stars Missy Franklin and the the U.S. women’s gymnastics team took the world by storm despite their youth. All were 18 or younger at the time of competition.
Football and baseball seem to be the lone sports that have avoided the teenage phenomenon. Baseball’s minor leagues effectively ensure that up-and-coming players who are promoted to the majors can survive baseball’s grueling slate of games. And the sheer physicality of professional football, along with the NFL’s draft eligibility rule — which requires players to be three years removed from high school before declaring for the draft — makes it difficult for athletes to cut college short to pursue NFL dreams. In 2005, the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement with its players said prospects must be at least 19 and one year removed from high school to be eligible for the NBA Draft.
But for every success story we hear about, there are hundreds we don’t. These are about athletes who didn’t realize their childhood dreams because of injuries or emotional stress or simply the high level of talent needed to make it.
Because overtraining, practice and competition no longer hold the same appeal they once did. Other times, bloated expectations and superlatives at an early age can never be met, leading to a mediocre professional career. Remember MLS’ Freddy Adu?
Maybe I’m off point, and maybe I’ve become too caught up in the second season of “Friday Night Lights” and the recruitment of “Smash” Williams, star running back for the Dillon Panthers. But increasingly, it seems as if college — often hailed as the best four years of your life — is simply becoming a means to an end, a brief interlude on the way to a max contract. And no matter the sport, I think there’s much more to it than that.
Jay is a freshman in Engineering. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jbensal.
