He plays with such skill and maturity that you want to check his birth certificate, because no one could be so physically gifted, so remarkably poised at such an early age. He is a genius, a prodigy, so talented that professional players 10 years his senior can't begin to keep up with him.

Who is he? A few years ago he would have been Kobe Bryant. A few weeks ago he would have been LeBron James. Today he's soccer star Freddy Adu, who, at 14, makes those other wunderkinder seem positively elderly. Adu signed a four-year professional contract last week with Major League Soccer's D.C. United that, along with the endorsement deals that are sure to follow, will make him a very rich man ... uh, boy.

More power to young Freddy. May he turn soccer into this country's next passion and live up to every other outlandish expectation laid upon him. Even the untrained eye can see that he does the near-impossible with a soccer ball, that he is one of those athletes who seems to crackle with electricity. There are any number of reasons to consider Freddy Adu special.

But his age really isn't one of them.

A young athlete who plays beyond his years isn't nearly as unusual as it once was. Think about Bryant, James, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady and Jermaine O'Neal, who all jumped straight from high school to the NBA. Think about Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie, the 6-foot, 14-year-old golfer who plays LPGA events and outdrives most of the players on the tour. We treat athletic prodigies as though they're once-in-a-lifetime players, when they are actually coming along in many sports with increasing frequency.

Why shouldn't they? It stands to reason that a LeBron or a Freddy will emerge more often because of the way our athletic culture works these days. Players in all sports are exposed to so much more elite competition, coaching and training than they were a decade or two ago. The top athletes are spotted at remarkably young ages -- in junior high or sometimes even earlier -- and matched not only against each other but also against older players to accelerate their development. It's no wonder that James was ready for the NBA so early. He had traveled the country since his freshman year of high school, playing in AAU tournaments against the best players in the nation. By the time he was 16, he was playing in summer pickup games with NBA players. That's the kind of seasoning that teenagers of earlier generations, no matter how physically gifted, just didn't have access to.

Adu may be only 14, but he's already had years of experience at a high levels of competition, playing for the U.S. under-17 national team as well as other elite squads. That's not to say that any talented kid his age, if given the same training, could have accomplished what he has, only that his natural gifts have been well-nurtured.

But for some reason we are still stunned to find that some boys can keep up with men. If you doubt that, consider how much less attention Adu would be getting if he were 24 instead of 14. Consider how much quieter James' entrance into the NBA would have been if he had played even a year of college. There's something about prodigies that just fascinates us, even when logic tells us that in terms of sports, we probably need to redefine exactly what a prodigy is.

Freddy Adu is an amazing player, but he had better enjoy his status as the reigning Boy Wonder while he can. Because the next Freddy or LeBron is on his way, and he'll be here sooner than we think.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.