Greg Richardson
02-11-2008, 02:07 AM
11-year-old sports phenom getting lots of attention
By CASEY MCNERTHNEY
P-I REPORTER
Guys waiting for the basketball court watch the two brothers and figure the game will be over fast. The older boy is four years and more a foot ahead of his sibling, and few think a fifth-grader could beat his high school brother one-on-one.
View a video of Jashaun Agosto in action.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-oC3aIHg95A
Few people have ever seen a kid like 11-year-old Jashaun Agosto.
He puts all his 70 pounds behind a couple NBA-range 3-pointers and gets a commanding lead. When his brother starts guarding him close, Jashaun wraps him like a candy cane stripe and finger rolls it in. As the game ends with a 3-pointer from the corner, Jashaun looks for the next challenger while his older brother lies on the court exhausted.
"Why'd you stop playing hard?" Jashaun asks.
"I got tired."
"I got tired, too," Jashaun tells his brother.
"No you didn't! You never get tired!"
In a way, he's right. Jashaun ran a mile in 4 minutes, 50 seconds at age 10 -- a time believed to be faster than the world record for his age. Coaches were astounded, and doctors wanted to figure out exactly why the kid wasn't knock-down exhausted.
They found his V02 max, a measure of aerobic capacity, was 66 -- a mark off the charts for his age and better than some professional athletes. And the kid hasn't even hit puberty.
Jashaun, a runner with Seattle Speed Track Club, hopes to set one-mile records for his age group later this month at an Arizona track race.
A couple weeks after he blew out his 11th birthday candles, a note and questionnaire came from UCLA. Word has gotten out about the leg muscles that have his 4-foot-9-inch frame hopping over full-size garbage cans in practice. Good Morning America called to book him on Tuesday's show. The Tonight Show has been in touch, too.
"He's just different," said his dad, Julio Agosto. "And, yeah, he can beat me at HORSE."
That's a big admission from a guy who started seeing his wife -- a fellow basketball player -- after winning a date with a 3-pointer. (It took three shots, but she didn't mind.)
Every weekday after classes at Silver Lake Elementary, Jashaun and his dad go the Federal Way Community Center for practices that typically last four hours. He looks like a pint-sized Harlem Globetrotter, dribbling with his left hand while his right grabs passes.
Dribbling between his legs? He does that with two basketballs, going behind his back while he's moving and looking up.
Every day, Jashaun shoots 100 jumpers from each edge of the free throw line, and moves to a new drill if he misses three in a row.
But that's only happened once in the last three months.
"Jashaun is by far the best 10 or 11 year old I've seen," said Tyrell Floyd, who has worked at the Community Center and watched him practice for months.
Floyd, once a standout player himself, has seen his share of jaw-dropping talent. He grew up in south Seattle, playing pickup and rec-league games with guys like Nate Robinson and Aaron Brooks -- both first-round NBA draft picks as Jashaun hopes to be. Floyd said when those guys were in elementary school, they didn't have the work ethic Jashaun displays.
"Watching him," he said, "is a privilege."
Julio Agosto was a talented part of a basketball family, but his son has already beat his best high school mile time. His mom, Michelle Williams, set the Highline High School 400-meter dash record the first and only time she ran it, though she doesn't take all the credit for her son's oh-my-gosh statistics.
He started walking as an 8-month-old. When Jashaun's parents would take their toddler through Southcenter Mall, he refused to sit in a stroller, running in front of them instead. His dad said that a few years ago, Jashaun insisted he play with him in a summer pick-up game, even though Agosto warned the other men playing wouldn't cut him slack.
And they didn't. His first couple shots were swatted off the court. Third time he got the ball, his dad said Jashaun scored a reverse layup.
"They may have more height," he said of bigger competitors. "But they play the same."
It's not uncommon on a weekend day for Jashaun to play a half dozen Amateur Athletic Union games with several teams. During one game Saturday, it was business as usual -- as the smallest kid on a squad dominated by seventh graders.
To see him in a huddle, some fans had to use tippy-toes in the bleachers. His head doesn't reach the top of jersey numbers on some of his teammates.
And because Jashaun consistently lights up opponents with double-digit scoring performances, the calls from admirers keep coming.
"It's hectic," Jashaun's mom said. "But he loves it. And as long as he keeps his grades up, I'm OK with it."
Same goes for dad, his consummate workout buddy, who boasts of all his eight children and said if Jashaun said he wanted to stop playing basketball tomorrow, "I'd be fine with it."
Friends say the kid isn't a bragger. Sometimes it's tough to get more than a word out of him.
What's the best part about basketball? Everything. How does it feel to beat the upperclassmen? Good. Why do you keep working so hard? To get better.
Most talkative Jashaun got Saturday was about a possible trip to the Tonight Show -- not because he'd get to be on TV, but because a producer said he might get to watch one of his idols, Kobe Bryant, at a Lakers game. Jashaun might even get to meet him, which would be something the less-than-5-foot phenom would likely talk about for years.
Maybe years from now, Bryant would brag about meeting Jashaun, too.
By CASEY MCNERTHNEY
P-I REPORTER
Guys waiting for the basketball court watch the two brothers and figure the game will be over fast. The older boy is four years and more a foot ahead of his sibling, and few think a fifth-grader could beat his high school brother one-on-one.
View a video of Jashaun Agosto in action.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-oC3aIHg95A
Few people have ever seen a kid like 11-year-old Jashaun Agosto.
He puts all his 70 pounds behind a couple NBA-range 3-pointers and gets a commanding lead. When his brother starts guarding him close, Jashaun wraps him like a candy cane stripe and finger rolls it in. As the game ends with a 3-pointer from the corner, Jashaun looks for the next challenger while his older brother lies on the court exhausted.
"Why'd you stop playing hard?" Jashaun asks.
"I got tired."
"I got tired, too," Jashaun tells his brother.
"No you didn't! You never get tired!"
In a way, he's right. Jashaun ran a mile in 4 minutes, 50 seconds at age 10 -- a time believed to be faster than the world record for his age. Coaches were astounded, and doctors wanted to figure out exactly why the kid wasn't knock-down exhausted.
They found his V02 max, a measure of aerobic capacity, was 66 -- a mark off the charts for his age and better than some professional athletes. And the kid hasn't even hit puberty.
Jashaun, a runner with Seattle Speed Track Club, hopes to set one-mile records for his age group later this month at an Arizona track race.
A couple weeks after he blew out his 11th birthday candles, a note and questionnaire came from UCLA. Word has gotten out about the leg muscles that have his 4-foot-9-inch frame hopping over full-size garbage cans in practice. Good Morning America called to book him on Tuesday's show. The Tonight Show has been in touch, too.
"He's just different," said his dad, Julio Agosto. "And, yeah, he can beat me at HORSE."
That's a big admission from a guy who started seeing his wife -- a fellow basketball player -- after winning a date with a 3-pointer. (It took three shots, but she didn't mind.)
Every weekday after classes at Silver Lake Elementary, Jashaun and his dad go the Federal Way Community Center for practices that typically last four hours. He looks like a pint-sized Harlem Globetrotter, dribbling with his left hand while his right grabs passes.
Dribbling between his legs? He does that with two basketballs, going behind his back while he's moving and looking up.
Every day, Jashaun shoots 100 jumpers from each edge of the free throw line, and moves to a new drill if he misses three in a row.
But that's only happened once in the last three months.
"Jashaun is by far the best 10 or 11 year old I've seen," said Tyrell Floyd, who has worked at the Community Center and watched him practice for months.
Floyd, once a standout player himself, has seen his share of jaw-dropping talent. He grew up in south Seattle, playing pickup and rec-league games with guys like Nate Robinson and Aaron Brooks -- both first-round NBA draft picks as Jashaun hopes to be. Floyd said when those guys were in elementary school, they didn't have the work ethic Jashaun displays.
"Watching him," he said, "is a privilege."
Julio Agosto was a talented part of a basketball family, but his son has already beat his best high school mile time. His mom, Michelle Williams, set the Highline High School 400-meter dash record the first and only time she ran it, though she doesn't take all the credit for her son's oh-my-gosh statistics.
He started walking as an 8-month-old. When Jashaun's parents would take their toddler through Southcenter Mall, he refused to sit in a stroller, running in front of them instead. His dad said that a few years ago, Jashaun insisted he play with him in a summer pick-up game, even though Agosto warned the other men playing wouldn't cut him slack.
And they didn't. His first couple shots were swatted off the court. Third time he got the ball, his dad said Jashaun scored a reverse layup.
"They may have more height," he said of bigger competitors. "But they play the same."
It's not uncommon on a weekend day for Jashaun to play a half dozen Amateur Athletic Union games with several teams. During one game Saturday, it was business as usual -- as the smallest kid on a squad dominated by seventh graders.
To see him in a huddle, some fans had to use tippy-toes in the bleachers. His head doesn't reach the top of jersey numbers on some of his teammates.
And because Jashaun consistently lights up opponents with double-digit scoring performances, the calls from admirers keep coming.
"It's hectic," Jashaun's mom said. "But he loves it. And as long as he keeps his grades up, I'm OK with it."
Same goes for dad, his consummate workout buddy, who boasts of all his eight children and said if Jashaun said he wanted to stop playing basketball tomorrow, "I'd be fine with it."
Friends say the kid isn't a bragger. Sometimes it's tough to get more than a word out of him.
What's the best part about basketball? Everything. How does it feel to beat the upperclassmen? Good. Why do you keep working so hard? To get better.
Most talkative Jashaun got Saturday was about a possible trip to the Tonight Show -- not because he'd get to be on TV, but because a producer said he might get to watch one of his idols, Kobe Bryant, at a Lakers game. Jashaun might even get to meet him, which would be something the less-than-5-foot phenom would likely talk about for years.
Maybe years from now, Bryant would brag about meeting Jashaun, too.