Childhood Sports Stars of the 2000s: Where Are They Now?
What ever happened to Freddy Adu? What about that one kid who was on the Today show for being a five-year-old tennis prodigy?
A lot of child sports stars go on to live up to the hype. Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Kevin Garnett—they were all childhood stars. By "childhood sports star," I just mean a young phenom—someone who, prior to his/her college years—was deemed likely to be a professional-caliber athlete.
Some of these phenoms, however, don’t pan out. And unfortunately, it's often those with the highest expectations who experience the lowest falls. Let’s find out what happened to some of the young stars from the 2000s who didn't quite make it (yet).
Lenny Cooke
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Lenny Cooke was a highly touted high school basketball prospect coming up around the same time as LeBron James. In fact, according to a piece in The New York Times by Harvey Araton, Cooke was ranked higher than both James and Carmelo Anthony at one point.
Cooke skipped college to enter the 2002 NBA draft, but he unfortunately went undrafted. He played on a couple of summer league teams, but Cooke’s NBA career never materialized. His story was made into a documentary in 2013, and according to IMDb, he now lives in southern Virginia.
Nastia Liukin
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Nastia Liukin is an Olympic gold-medal gymnast. In 2002, she made the junior national team at age 12. In 2005, she earned gold medals on the bars and beam at the world championships in Melbourne. Perhaps her highest achievement came at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she won the all-around gold medal at just 18 years of age.
Liukin failed to make the 2012 Olympic team, but since her peak in Beijing, she has kept plenty busy. She has done some modeling, launched a clothing line and was recently named the grand marshal for the upcoming Indianapolis 500. Liukin is also a cast member on the latest season of Dancing with the Stars.
Greg Oden
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Greg Oden was famously taken first in the 2007 NBA draft over future MVP Kevin Durant. And why not? Oden won three state titles in high school, and in 2006, he was named Indiana's Mr. Basketball and the Gatorade National Player of the Year. At 7'0", it made sense when the Portland Trail Blazers took him first.
Unfortunately for Oden, injuries plagued his entire NBA career, and Durant easily surpassed him early on. Since 2007, Oden has played in just 105 NBA games.
Less than a year ago, Oden stated he didn’t plan to make another comeback attempt, but his tune may have changed. According to his former college coach Thad Matta, Oden has been working out in Columbus, Ohio, and another NBA run isn't completely out of the question.
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Chase Austin
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Chase Austin was 14 years old when Hendrick Motorsports signed him as a development driver for NASCAR in 2004. Unfortunately, Hendrick eliminated the development program in 2005, and since then, Austin has had a hard time finding a home. He did race a few times in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and later in the Firestone Indy Lights Series.
In 2013, he told Rick Peterson of The Topeka-Capital Journal, "Sponsorship and the economy and everything is up and down, but I'm up for anything."
In May 2014, Austin was involved in a wreck at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and suffered a fractured wrist. According to his Twitter account, he is still chasing his driving dreams.
Darko Milicic
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Darko Milicic made it to the top level of his Serbian basketball team, Hemofarm Vrsac, just before turning 16. The 7-footer was hyped as a promising big man, and he became and early entrant in the 2003 NBA draft. The Detroit Pistons took Milicic No. 2 overall, passing on a few guys you may have heard of—Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade, for example.
Milicic toiled around the NBA for the next decade, playing for six teams in 10 seasons and never amounting to much. He averaged six points and 4.2 rebounds over his career. In 2014, Milicic took aim at a new career—professional kickboxing (yes, really). His most recent newsworthy action was to chug a beer on camera with no hands.
Shawn Johnson
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Shawn Johnson won three gold medals at the 2007 gymnastics world championships. The following year, she joined Nastia Liukin at the Summer Olympics in Beijing. At the age of 16, Johnson won four Olympic medals, including one gold on the beam. Injury sidelined her from the 2012 Games, and she subsequently retired from gymnastics.
Since 2008, Johnson has competed on reality shows Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing with the Stars. She has authored a book, created her own website and enrolled at Vanderbilt University. Most recently, her longtime boyfriend Andrew East was just signed by the Kansas City Chiefs.
Dajuan Wagner
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Dajuan Wagner once scored 100 points in a basketball game for Camden High School in New Jersey. According to Tim Casey of USA Today, as of December, he was still New Jersey’s all-time leading scorer with over 3,400 points. The talented guard played one year of college ball at Memphis before the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him sixth overall in 2002.
Due to injuries and other health issues, Wagner played in just 103 NBA games from 2002-06. In December, at age 31, Wagner indicated an interest in a comeback attempt. Stay tuned.
Amobi Okoye
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Amobi Okoye tested into high school when he was 12 years old. As a freshman, he began to lift weights and eventually joined the football team. According to Seth Wickersham of ESPN The Magazine, an assistant from the University of Louisville saw Okoye play in high school and called him a "phenom."
At 16, Okoye was playing defensive tackle at Louisville, and at 19, he was drafted by the Houston Texans, becoming the youngest first-round pick since the merger. He played in all 16 games his rookie season, recording 5.5 sacks and 23 tackles.
Okoye continued to play in the NFL until recently, but he never improved upon that first season. After recovering from some medical issues in 2013, he signed a two-year deal with the Dallas Cowboys. However, Okoye never played a down for the team and was released in April.
Taylor King
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Taylor King was a high school basketball phenom at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California. The forward set the career scoring record for Orange County, and he became the fifth player in California history to score over 3,000 points. In his senior season, King was named California's Mr. Basketball and led his team to a state title.
King was recruited by Duke and played one lackluster season there in 2007-08 before transferring to Villanova and later Concordia University. His dream of playing in the NBA never materialized, and King did stints in Canada and Taiwan. According to his FIBA profile, King is now playing for the Cheshire Phoenix of the British Basketball League.
Jan Silva
10 of 12In 2007, Jan Silva was five years old and already being touted as a young tennis prodigy. At that time, Douglas Robson of USA Today reported Silva and his family were living at a tennis academy in France, all expenses paid, while the youngster trained. The Telegraph called him “the Roger Federer of the future.”
The Silva family returned to the U.S. in 2009, due in part to some personal issues. Since then, information on young Jan is hard to come by. However, according to Tennis Recruiting, he’s still at it, in seventh grade and playing tennis in California.
Danny Almonte
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Danny Almonte was a lights-out lefty and the central figure in a Little League baseball scandal in the early 2000s. He pitched for the Rolando Paulino Little League team in the Bronx. Almonte's fastball hit 75 mph, and he once tossed a perfect game in the Little League World Series. In 2001, he helped lead his team all the way to the U.S. championship game.
Unfortunately, while everyone thought he was 12 years old, Almonte was actually 14. The lie, perpetuated by his coach and father, resulted in the nullification of Rolando Paulino’s accomplishments. Almonte's promising pitching career never reached its once-high potential, but he did play some college, independent and semi-professional baseball before retiring in 2009.
According to Justin Breen of DNAinfo, Almonte is now an assistant high school baseball coach and a furniture mover in New York City.
Freddy Adu
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Freddy Adu was just 14 years old when he became the youngest player in Major League Soccer history. He was drafted by D.C. United in 2004 and later made his first appearance for the U.S. men's national team at age 16. People called him "the next Pele." High praise.
Adu's career unfortunately didn't reach the heights many expected, and he has bounced around, playing for 11 teams throughout his career. It's not over yet, though. At age 25, Adu just signed a one-year deal with a Finnish club team, Kupion Palloseura.
According to Avi Creditor of Sports Illustrated, Adu said, "I needed to go to a place where I could just play football and enjoy it in peace."
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