Outside the clubhouse, a teenage boy with cropped, bleached white hair waited for Bryce Harper. The boy wore a Philadelphia Phillies jersey, flap open, a gold chain across his bare chest. Most of the kids Cavan Sullivans age would bulge their eyes or get nervous if they came across the Phillies slugger. Most kids Cavan Sullivan’s age would be begging for a selfie.
Cavan Sullivan is not most children. Never before, not since he was named the next big star in football, has he been able to buy a ticket to a film rated 13 and over.
At 14 years old, 293 days old, Sullivan became the youngest player to appear in a match for a major professional sports league when he made his debut for the Philadelphia Union in July.
Chris Szagola / AP
The teenage soccer phenomenon caught the attention of a former teenage prodigy who knows more about baseball than he does about soccer. Harper is a bit of a soccer fanatic; his wife played in college. He sent fans into a frenzy when he celebrated a home run in the MLB London Series with a soccer-style slide, then yelled from the dugout, “I love soccer!”
Harper has mastered the unmanageable expectations that came with a career as a Sports Illustrated cover boy at 16. It’s the kind of career blueprint Sullivan would like to follow, the prospect who turns potential into greatness instead of lapsing into a what-happens-trivia answer.
“Your skills are incredible, bro. Unbelievable,” Harper told him that day.
“Have you seen some of the clips?” Sullivan asked.
Yes, Harper has seen a few. After Sullivan gifted Harper a Union jersey with the Phillies first baseman’s name on the back, the center fielder sounded more like a wise World Cup veteran than a high school kid who has to hitchhike.
“As you know, there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Sullivan said. “The hype doesn’t really mean anything.”
The hype is big in Philly and growing by the day in MLS. By the time he is expected to make the move to English Premier League powerhouse Manchester City, it could be known worldwide.
It’s the kind of start Sullivan has dreamed of his entire life. All 14 years.
“I would say I realized I could be a professional when I was 10 or 11,” Sullivan says. “I think that’s when I posted my first highlight reel. … People were saying things that I couldn’t have imagined, thinking I could be where I am now. It came true.”
Sullivan was younger than any player to play in the NBA, NHL, NFL, WNBA or Major League Baseball since 1970, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. McKenna Whitham, 14, made her NWSL debut last week with Gotham, while she was 10 months younger than Sullivan.
The Sullivans are a football family. He is the second child of Penn college football players Brendan and Heike Sullivan. Oldest brother Quinn already plays for Union, and younger brothers Ronan and Declan are in the pipeline for the team. Union coach Jim Curtin played football at Villanova under Sullivan’s grandfather, Larry. Brendan Sullivan coached under his father at Villanova, all the familiar ties needed to ease the family’s comfort level with turning Cavan pro so young.
His earliest football memory, “shirtless in diapers, kicking stuff at animals,” was reason enough for Sullivan to leave his hometown of Norristown, Pennsylvania, for a future in Europe.
His mother remembers the overwhelming feeling when fans recognized Sullivan at Union Stadium and started asking for autographs. That was before he made history; since then he has been all over the neighborhood, promoting fast-food chicken for a promotional campaign. He has been filmed for a documentary and, on a family day off, was mobbed by autograph hunters on the coast. He threw out the first pitch at that Phillies game.
“Just throw a strike or you’ll get booed,” manager Rob Thomson Sullivan warned in his office.
Sullivan did indeed pull one out, very high. The crowd in Philly took it in stride.
“I was aiming high,” Sullivan said. “It just kept going.”
Sullivan has more than just a professional football career. He was supposed to be starting his freshman year of high school, but is instead headed into his junior year at YSC Academy, a football-specific high school where his father is a humanities teacher.
“I feel like if I work now, I can have fun later,” he said. “But I’m having fun. I work every day. That’s the beauty of it.”
So this is the part of Sullivan’s story where mother and father and child and coach say, sure, he could be a future Messi, but he’s just like any other kid his age. He sleeps in and makes jokes and Snapchats girls and plays video games and… no. None of that.
Sullivan’s fun: soccer. His home life: soccer. His hobbies: soccer, soccer, soccer. He laughed and said no when asked if he played FIFA, at least not regularly. Sullivan still lives at home, where soccer dominates his social life, where mother says, “Prodigy was not a word that was used in our house.”
“Do I miss all my children a little bit of those normal things from my childhood? Yes,” says Heike. “Is Cavan’s situation perhaps worsened by his situation? Absolutely. … Yes, he misses nice things from his childhood, and we’ve had conversations about that. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by that.”
One of the reasons, including instant fame, endorsements, nearly 72,000 TikTok followers and 245,000 Instagram followers, is a reported $500,000 salary. The union negotiated a $5 million transfer deal with Man City, winners of the Premier League titles from 2021 to 2024.
The collaborative transfer agreement makes Sullivan’s deal unusual, as it signals the Premier League club’s confidence in Union to develop an elite player.
Sullivan cannot play for Manchester City until he is 18. But he has a German passport that will allow him to move to Europe and play for teams affiliated to City, such as Girona in Spain or Palermo in Italy, when he turns 16.
“Man City means nothing,” says Sullivan, “if I don’t do anything here.”
Heike Sullivan says 99 percent of Cavan’s money is invested, with the rest in a checking account. He gets financial guidance from his mother, a top Philadelphia lawyer, and they read every detail of a contract together.
His family, the Union and Man City have provided the tools Sullivan needs to flourish and reach the heights projected for him. But for every Harper, every LeBron James, every Sidney Crosby, there are many more must-see teenage sensations who missed out. Freddy Adu, a pro at 14, was dubbed the next Pele but bounced around without much of a legacy.
“That’s a data point that we have to learn from,” Heike said. “But I think his situation is different. He still has to go to school, that’s something we’re on top of him about. Recognizing that this is a completely new situation for us, I think we’re smart enough, educated enough, mentored enough, by his agent, and things like that, to keep him on the right path.”
Even now that top athletes like Harper want to meet him, Sullivan remains humble about his new life as a sports attraction.
“Fame doesn’t mean that much to me,” he said. “It’s really about the football side of things and what you can do with the ball at your feet.”
So far, pretty good. Sullivan was named the best player at the CONCACAF Under-15 Championships. He had two assists in the 4-2 win over Mexico in the final. The next chance to potentially get him is Sunday in a Leagues Cup match, an MLS regular-season tournament.
“Right now we think this is the best environment for him to play in, where he has a full support system,” said Curtin, the Union’s coach since 2014, though he admitted: “He’s going to play at the highest level this sport has.”
Or believe Harper, who got his introduction while he still could: Philly is just the start of what could be a fruitful career that extends far beyond MLS.
Cracked Harper: “Don’t forget us all when you go to Manchester City.”
