The 25 greatest teen phenoms in all sports

His transcendence in the basketball world is widely acknowledged, and James delivered the goods from moment one in the NBA, rendering insufficient even the insane hype he had been receiving since his junior year of high school. Only two teenage rookies in NBA history managed to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game — James, and a player who might be making an appearance here shortly. Taking into account expectations and the degree to which he met them, there’s a case to be made that James is the greatest teenage phenom in sports history. Others have accomplished more within their respective sports, but one year of James was enough to know that something truly special was in the offing. James also gets bonus points for handling 24/7 media attention that no one else mentioned here had to deal with.

It's one thing to break through as a teenager in a particular sport, but it's quite another thing altogether to do so in New York City. Gooden exploded onto the scene in 1984 at the age of 19, going 17-9 with a 2.60 ERA while leading the league with 276 strikeouts in only 218 innings. He thrilled Mets fans and tormented National League hitters with a fastball that touched 98 and a curveball that was nicknamed "Lord Charles." Gooden's 276 strikeouts broke Herb Score's rookie record; his 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings was, at the time, the major league single-season record. Oh, and he became the youngest player in All-Star Game history that year and struck out the side during his appearance. He won Rookie of the Year and finished a dubious second in Cy Young voting despite having better numbers almost across the board compared to the winner, Rick Sutcliffe. Not bad work for 19, is it?

If you came of age in the late 1990s and you had even a passing interest in tennis, you probably liked Andre Agassi but knew that Pete Sampras was king of the sport. Sampras' dominance, particularly at Wimbledon, was equal parts impressive and intimidating, which made Federer's 2001 victory all the more shocking. Just 19 at the time, he outlasted Sampras in five sets, besting a man many still felt was invincible on grass. Though Federer would lose to Tim Henman in the next round, the breakthrough represented a changing of the guard, as Sampras would win only one more Grand Slam title — the 2002 U.S. Open — and from 2003-2009, Federer would win six of seven Wimbledon crowns. Oh, and at the time they faced off in 2001, Sampras' name was thrown around in "best player of all time" discussions — ones that now don't happen, as Federer assumed that mantle until the rise of Novak Djokovic.

Sure, everyone talked about his more famous teammate, and that teammate, Bryce Harper, also debuted as a teenager, but he wasn’t as good as Soto at 19. Harper posted an .817 OPS and 22 home runs in his rookie season, numbers that did not stack up to Soto’s .923 OPS and 22 homers, particularly considering the fact that Soto posted his stats in 103 fewer plate appearances. Somehow those stats weren’t good enough to win Rookie of the Year honors, mainly because Ronald Acuna Jr. was just as good. But Soto was nothing short of spectacular in his debut season. In fact, he was the only teenage rookie in baseball history to post at least a .900 OPS while logging at least 400 plate appearances. 

Pele announced himself to the world at the 1958 World Cup at the tender age of 17. In that tournament, he became the youngest goal scorer in World Cup history, the youngest player to notch a hat trick in World Cup history and the youngest player to both play in and score in a World Cup final. All of those records still stand to this day, and it’s hard to imagine them being broken soon — or ever, really. He scored his first goal for the Brazilian national team when he was 16, which is also a record for precociousness that stands to this day. It should not need to be said that a man who is still considered by most to be the greatest player of all time would go on to pile up more accolades as he got older. Pele won two more World Cups, becoming the only man in history to win three.

Tyson went 23-0 as a teenager, and only James Tillis and Mitch Green avoided being knocked out by the soon-to-be world heavyweight champion. The traits he would become known for as his star rose to unimaginable heights were well in evidence even at 18 and 19 —Tyson had ferocious, unthinkable power right from the start, to go along with blindingly fast hands. He destroyed just about everything in his path in swift fashion and captured the attention of not only boxing fans but also of casual sports fans. Though his later career would hit some well-chronicled bumps in the road, Tyson’s early years were the rare case of a dominant athlete rapidly progressing from local to regional to national sensation without the immediate hype and scrutiny faced by today’s best teen stars.

If you’ve ever tried to play tennis, you know how hard it is and how absurd it is that professionals are able to do it at such a high level. While it is a sport where youth is served regularly (pun intended, and I’m very sorry about it), Becker’s rise was still stunning. He was only 17 when he won Wimbledon in 1985, becoming both the first unseeded player and first German player to win the singles title. The victory made him, at the time, the youngest-ever male Grand Slam singles champion, though his hold on that record would last only a few years. Becker defended his title at Wimbledon the following year and went on to win four more Grand Slam titles. He remains the youngest male singles champion in Wimbledon history, and though his later career was not as successful, his sudden, spectacular arrival in the mid-1980s made a major impact on the sport.

Phelps was already known to most after qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics at age 15, but it was at the 2004 Olympics in Athens where he really made his mark. Only 19, Phelps bagged six gold medals to go along with two bronze, and he fell just one gold short of matching Mark Spitz’s seven at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Phelps won four individual titles during the games, and by the end he was arguably the biggest star from the entire American contingent. He would go on to dominate the sport for over a decade, winning a record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing games and setting world records in seven of his eight victories. Four more golds in 2012 and five more in 2016 merely distanced Phelps from the rest of the men’s swimming world to an almost humorous degree. No less an authority than Spitz himself called Phelps both the greatest swimmer of all time as well as the greatest Olympian of all time.

Major League Baseball was quite a bit different when Feller made his debut at age 17 in 1936. The sport was not yet integrated, which meant that the talent pool was not what it should have been. But it is still hard to fathom a teenager racking up almost three full seasons of big league experience before turning 20. Feller posted a sub-3.50 ERA in his first two seasons and was an All-Star in his third. He also led the league in strikeouts in his age-19 campaign, with 240. As good as Feller was as a teenager, he was simply dominant in his 20s. From 1939 to 1941, he won 24, 27, and 25 games, respectively, before serving three years in the military. When he got back to full-season competition in 1946, he won 26 games and then 20 the following year. The “Heater from Van Meter” finished his career with 266 wins and won the league strikeout title every year he played a full season from 1938-1948. But for his military service, he would have easily cracked 300 wins and probably gotten closer to 350 than anything. Still, Feller was a slam-dunk Hall of Famer, earning the honor in 1962 with nearly 94 percent of votes.

Williams announced herself to the tennis world by making it to the U.S. Open final in 1997, becoming the first woman since Pam Shriver in 1978 to accomplish the feat on her first attempt. Williams was also the first unseeded U.S. Open women’s singles finalist since 1958. She won a doubles title with younger sister Serena at the 1999 French Open while still a teenager and broke through in 2000 to win both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, though she had turned 20 by that point. Williams’ arrival as one of the sport’s biggest stars was a major shot in the arm for women’s tennis but also the sport as a whole, and she forged notable rivalries with Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport and her own sister. While Serena established herself as the best female player in history, Venus’ career record of five Wimbledon titles and two U.S. Opens stands as extremely impressive in its own right — and she would have had more but for her sister’s excellence.

Imagine the toughest kid in your high school. Pretty tough, right? Now imagine that kid is not just some rough and tumble brawler but in fact a world champion boxer. That’s something different altogether, but Wilfred Benitez earned himself the WBA and lineal junior welterweight titles with a 15-round split decision win over Antonio Cervantes. Benitez, incredibly, was still three months shy of his 18^th birthday when he won the fight, and many of his high school classmates were in attendance. He went on to successfully defend his title twice, won titles in two more weight classes and had memorable bouts with some of the biggest names in the sport — losses to Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns and a win over Roberto Duran —before retiring in 1990. Benitez will forever remain the youngest world champion in boxing history, now that the minimum age for a professional fighter is 18.

Sampras was the dominant force in men’s tennis for virtually the entirety of the 1990s, and any keen observers probably knew that such a run was coming when he won the 1990 U.S. Open less than a month after his 19^th birthday. Sampras became the youngest-ever male singles champion with the win, and it kick-started a career that saw him dominate most opponents, particularly on the grass at Wimbledon. Sampras won every men’s singles title at the All England Club from 1993-2000, with the exception of 1996. Though he never won the French Open, as clay was his worst surface, Sampras retired with 14 Grand Slam singles titles. Many considered him the greatest player of his era and a physical force whose serve-and-volley game was nearly impossible to beat when at its peak.

Evert nearly tasted victory in two Grand Slams — the French Open and Wimbledon — as an 18-year-old in 1973. The following year she won both events at age 19 and reeled off a 55-match winning streak overall. That streak was a record at the time and helped pace Evert to a 100-7 overall singles record that season. She also reached the finals of the Australian Open that year and made the semifinals at the U.S. Open. Evert went on to dominate women’s tennis for the last half of the decade and forged a memorable rivalry with Martina Navratilova that defined women’s tennis until the late 1980s. Evert’s teenage years also saw her begin a stunning streak where she won 125 consecutive matches on clay, all the while losing a grand total of eight sets in the process. She still holds the record for most French Open singles titles for a female player, and only Rafael Nadal has more clay court Grand Slam titles.

Boris Becker’s Wimbledon win at age 17 was impressive, as it made him the youngest Grand Slam singles champion in history. The record would stand for only four years before Chang won the 1989 French Open at 17 years, 110 days of age. He remains the youngest Grand Slam singles champion in history, though that triumph proved to be the only Grand Slam title of his career. Chang is also known for his victory over Ivan Lendl in the same tournament, one that saw him overcome cramps, a two-set deficit and a seemingly superior opponent using several desperation, unorthodox tactics to stay in the match. Chang never replicated the same degree of success, though he was one of the world’s highest-ranked players throughout much of the 1990s and reached the Australian and U.S. Open finals in 1996.

It stands to reason that a man whose career earned him the nickname “The Great One” would get started early. His rookie season with the Edmonton Oilers saw him lead the NHL in both assists and points, all at the age of 19. He also won the Hart Trophy as league MVP, the first of a record eight straight MVP wins. Gretzky had already established himself as a star in the WHA as an 18-year-old, and that followed years of being one of the most-watched junior players in Canada. Gretzky’s 137 points his rookie season would become pedestrian compared to what he did in subsequent years. He topped 200 points on four separate occasions, including three straight seasons, and finished his career with 2,857 points, including 894 goals, both of which are NHL records.

Before Michael Phelps dominated men’s swimming, there was the “Thorpedo.” Thorpe was one of the best swimmers in the world by the time he was 18, and with the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, there was immense pressure on the hometown hero to deliver the goods. He responded with three gold medals, including a world record in the 400-meter freestyle, and added two silvers to his total. That performance made him the most successful athlete at the games, and he followed it up with two more gold medals at the 2004 Olympics. Phelps’ rapid rise rendered Thorpe’s accomplishments something of an afterthought, but in 2000 he was the biggest name in the sport.

Ott broke into the big leagues less than two months after turning 17, and in limited action, he hit .383. His age-18 season saw him hit his first home run, though still in limited action. At age 19, he started to blossom. Ott hit 18 home runs that season, batted .322 and posted a .921 OPS. He went on to become one of the greatest power hitters of all time, leading the Giants in home runs for 18 straight seasons and leading the National League six different times. He was the youngest player to reach 100 career home runs and was the first National League player to hit 500. Ott was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1951. In an interesting footnote, he went on to manage the Giants, and in 1946 he became the first manager in history to be ejected from both games of a doubleheader.

Not much was expected from Ledecky when she made her international debut at the 2012 London Olympics, but she surprised observers by winning gold in the women’s 800-meter freestyle, doing so in dominant fashion by almost four seconds over second place. Ledecky was the youngest American competitor at those Olympics, but by the time the 2016 Rio games rolled around, she was 19 and very much on everyone’s radar. Ledecky did not disappoint, taking home four gold medals and one silver, and she was the most decorated female Olympian at the games. In the 800-meter freestyle at those games, she completely obliterated the field, winning the race by 11 seconds while setting a world record for the distance. She also became the first swimmer to win the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyle at the same Olympics since Debbie Meyer in 1968. Not bad for someone who at that point had not yet started college.

Griffey Jr. and his father famously hit back-to-back home runs in 1990, but that happened by the time Griffey had turned 20. His age-19 season was highly impressive, however, as he burst onto the scene with 16 home runs and a solid .748 OPS. His defense and all-around ability was noteworthy immediately, befitting his status as the first-overall pick in the 1987 MLB Draft. Griffey doubled off Dave Stewart in his first big-league plate appearance and hit his first home run a week later. He went on to win an MVP Award, make 13 All-Star teams, win 10 Gold Gloves and hit 630 home runs. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016, and his 99.32 percent of the vote broke Tom Seaver’s all-time record, though it stood for only a handful of years until Mariano Rivera became the first player unanimously voted in. Griffey’s career is remembered as one of baseball’s best, and the cultural, stylistic impact he had on the sport is felt even today.

Capriati was a phenom at 13, and as a 14-year-old, she made it to the semifinals of the French Open and to the fourth round at Wimbledon. She finished the season ranked eighth in the world and in the process set several “youngest ever” records for women’s tennis. Capriati won Olympic gold as a teenager at the 1992 games, beating Steffi Graf in the gold medal match. Despite taking a hiatus in her later teens and battling problems off the court, Capriati eventually regained her form in her mid-20s, winning back-to-back Australian Open titles in 2001 and 2002 to go with the 2001 French Open title. Though her career never truly made good on its early promise, Capriati was one of the most fascinating figures in sports, and her rise, fall and subsequent rise again was one of tennis’ most inspirational redemption stories.

This list wouldn’t be complete without Woods, who didn’t turn professional until age 20 but by then had already piled up plenty of amateur accolades as well as more buzz than any golfer in recent memory. Woods won numerous national junior tournaments in his teenage years, including the U.S. Junior Amateur at 15, 16 and 17 and the U.S. Amateur in 1994 at age 18. Woods went on to win the U.S. Amateur two more years, becoming the only player to win the event three times in a row. Woods also took part in the 1995 Masters at 19 years old and was the only amateur to make the cut, finishing 41^st. His accomplishments as a professional are well-known, but Woods laid the groundwork for his staggering career with equally impressive performances throughout his teens.

When Wayne Gretzky says you’re going to be the one to break his records, that’s pretty heady stuff. Crosby was up to the task, as he topped 100 points two straight years before turning 20. He won the Hart Trophy at age 19 and led the league in scoring that year as well. Despite coming into the league with a target on his back, and hype that, relative to each sport’s popularity, rivaled that of LeBron James in basketball, Crosby thrived and routinely played his best in the most hostile environments. He tortured the rival Flyers and their fans right from the start, and despite playing in a more scoring-depressed environment, he has still managed to rack up over 1,500 points in only a little more than 1,200 career games, firmly establishing himself not only as the preeminent player of his generation but also one of the greatest of all time.

Wie West’s prodigious talents were on display before she even hit her teenage years, as she became the youngest player in history to qualify for a USGA amateur championship, in her case the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship. She managed to advance to the match play portion of the tourney and followed up the feat by making the cut at the 2003 Kraft Nabisco Championship, in the process becoming the youngest player to make an LPGA cut. She made the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open at 13 as well, becoming the youngest player to do that, and upon receiving a sponsor’s exemption to the 2004 Sony open in Hawaii, managed to shoot 68 in the second round of the PGA Tour event. She was the youngest-ever female competitor in a PGA Tour event and went on to make it to the match play portion of the men’s U.S. Amateur Public Links. Wie did all of this before turning 16. Not bad for someone who should have been finishing up her sophomore year of high school.

Remember that trivia question about teenage NBA rookies to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game and how only two players had ever done it and one was LeBron James? The other was Doncic, and his stats were superior to James’ in those categories. There were some questions about how he would adjust to the NBA game, but Doncic answered them all and then some, showing off an exceptionally polished, refined game and putting his considerable skills on display night in and night out. Doncic averaged 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6 assists per game on his way to winning Rookie of the Year and is now firmly entrenched as one of the best players in the world.

Garnett’s decision to jump from high school straight to the pros earned him plenty of scrutiny, as he was the first player to do so in 20 years. Garnett dealt with the pressure and handled himself admirably, averaging 10.4 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. He filled the stat sheet in just about every other area as well and soon became one of the best players in the league, and a force all over the court. Garnett paved the way for high school prodigies like Lebron James and went to 15 All-Star Games. He won an NBA championship with the Celtics and is widely regarded as both one of the best players of his era and of all time. Garnett’s unique skill set for his size also foreshadowed the NBA’s recent switch to a more positionless league.