Sports of The Times: A Teenager Handling the Adult World With Poise November 20, 2003 By GEORGE VECSEY
FREDDY ADU is mature far beyond his 14 years. When he makes a spin move on the soccer field, he leaves opponents chomping on the turf, real or artificial. Adu is also mature in the complicated world of New York news conferences. Yesterday he signed with Major League Soccer, graciously thanking his mother and everybody else who had helped him along the way. "The 46-year-old commissioner needed notes, but the 14-year-old player did not," announced Don Garber, the commissioner of the league. Afterward, Adu was catching a bite to eat in a private room. Sitting next to him was his mother, Emelia, who brought him over from Ghana when he was 9 for the normal survivor reasons people seek out the United States. His mother tells him what to do. For the foreseeable future, he will live at home in suburban Maryland, on her say-so. In return, as man of the house, he protects her. Emelia Adu does not give interviews. That was the word yesterday after she discreetly slipped out of the crowded news conference. But when I was ushered into the private room to be introduced, I tried my luck with a question about her high standards for her son. She smiled politely, sweetly, but no words came out. Freddy Adu, all 5 feet 8 inches and 140 pounds, stood up and intervened, turning the awkward moment into a joke. "People ask her questions and she freezes," he said, smiling at her, smiling at me, bringing us together in the glow of his presence. Every mother should have a son like this at her side, and vice versa. Adu may indeed be one of a kind, just as the people in American soccer dare to dream for him, for them. He has been a golden boy since he showed up for a mass practice in Washington five years ago. People gasped at his moves, which he learned playing barefoot from the age of 2 in Tema, Ghana. Growing up in a world that knows and loves soccer, he saw photos of Pelé and Diego Armando Maradona, and he wanted to be like them. "We had a tryout for 13-year-olds to go to France," recalled Kevin Payne, a former general manager for D.C. United. One youngster impressed Payne so much that he telephoned Bruce Arena, the United coach at the time, and said, "Bruce, you have to come out here and watch this kid." Later they found out Adu was only 9. He was just in from Ghana, where his mother had won a government lottery for the right to apply to emigrate to the United States, having nothing whatsoever to do with soccer. Suddenly, he became Ghana's great gift to the United States. Arena is now the national team coach, who just may consider Adu for the next World Cup in 2006. New international soccer rules made it difficult for the great clubs of Europe to sign Adu and use him in senior competition, but it was a moot point. His mother wanted him to finish high school, which he will do in May, and she wanted him where she could keep an eye on him for the apparent four years of his new contract. During the news conference yesterday, video monitors played endless loops of Freddy Adu highlight clips. In white jerseys, blue jerseys and green workout vests, he swivel-hipped his way through defenders of all nations. "Incredible ball control," said Mark Noonan, an executive vice president for M.L.S., who played for Duke when it won the national college championship in 1986. Yesterday, Noonan quietly narrated Adu's clips, with a mix of jealousy and awe. "Joy," Noonan said. "Vision. He's left-footed but he can shoot with his right. The Maradona factor. Knowing where his people are. Exuberance. Poise. Look at that, an uncanny cutback. He doesn't hesitate. He just slalomed through five guys! He's the youngest guy on the field. The tapes don't lie." The tapes showed a youngster playing with the improvisational skills of world soccer, the way they play in dusty streets of Naples and Buenos Aires and Lagos, rather than the rigid textbook drills of American youth leagues. Soon Adu will be playing against hardened professionals, twice his age, but yesterday he more than handled his coming-out ceremony. He recalled playing on the "rocks and broken bottles" in Ghana, with the occasional goat wandering onto the field. "I'd cry if my mom called for me to come in," he said. Some reporters wring their hands at the growing trend of young players like LeBron James forsaking college to play pro basketball and Maurice Clarett's eagerness to leave college for the National Football League. Freddy Adu's poise and his video clips kept reporters from reporting the M.L.S. to the child-labor authorities. The league holds its championship game Sunday on ABC. The next big date for the league is April 3 - Adu's first game with D.C. United, also on ABC. Yesterday, the young man did not leave us twisted into pretzel shapes on the grass, the way he does defenders. He left us smiling in the glow of his presence. What a lovely, hopeful start.
