Mia Hamm
Mia Hamm, born Mariel Margaret Hamm on March 17, 1972, in Selma, Alabama, is a celebrated former professional soccer player and a pioneer for women's sports. Growing up in a military family, she developed a passion for soccer alongside her five siblings, particularly influenced by her adopted brother Garrett. Hamm gained national attention as a teenager while playing for Notre Dame High School and was recruited to the U.S. national team at just 15 years old, becoming the youngest member in team history.
Throughout her illustrious career, Hamm played for the University of North Carolina, leading her team to four NCAA championships and setting records with 103 career goals. She became a global star after winning the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991 and went on to achieve further success, including two Olympic gold medals and multiple records for international goals.
Post-retirement in 2004, Hamm founded the Mia Hamm Foundation, focusing on medical research and promoting women's athletics. Her legacy includes numerous accolades, such as being inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame and recognized as one of the most influential figures in women's sports. Today, she remains active in soccer, serving in advisory roles and advocating for women’s involvement in athletics.
Mia Hamm
Soccer Player
- Born: March 17, 1972
- Place of Birth: Selma, Alabama
SPORT: Soccer
Early Life
The daughter of William and Stephanie Hamm, Mariel Margaret Hamm was born on March 17, 1972, in Selma, Alabama, where her father, a United States Air Force officer, was stationed. Nicknamed Mia in honor of a ballerina whom her mother admired, she ironically disliked dancing lessons. Instead, she enjoyed playing ball with her five siblings and friends. Her older brother, Garrett, an orphaned Thai American whom the Hamms adopted, was a talented athlete who encouraged Hamm’s involvement in sports by choosing her to play on his teams for neighborhood games.
Throughout her childhood, Hamm moved with her family to several US Air Force bases in Europe and the United States. Sports helped her to adjust to new surroundings and befriend people despite her tendency to be shy. Her father became interested in soccer when the family lived in Italy. Garrett was also a soccer enthusiast. Although Hamm enjoyed playing various sports, she focused on soccer because she liked it best. Joining peewee leagues, Hamm was often the only girl playing in games. She gradually developed skills, confidence, and self-discipline, and became her teams’ leading scorer.
The Road to Excellence
As a teenager, Hamm played soccer for Notre Dame High School in Wichita Falls, Texas, and quickly attracted attention because of her extraordinary talent, agility, and speed. Coach John Cossaboon asked Hamm to join the Olympic development team he was organizing. He also invited Anson Dorrance, the University of North Carolina’s women’s soccer coach and US national team coach, to watch Hamm play. Awestruck by Hamm’s superb performance, Dorrance recognized Hamm’s potential and recruited her for the national team.
At the age of fifteen, Hamm was the youngest member in the team’s history. Her first international match was against China on August 3, 1987. She graduated from Lake Braddock High School in Burke, Virginia, in 1989. She scored her first international goal on July 25, 1990, against Norway.
Playing for Dorrance at the University of North Carolina, Hamm dominated women’s college soccer. During her collegiate career, she played in seventy consecutive victorious games, which led to four National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championships. The North Carolina team lost only one of ninety-five games while Hamm was a member. She was designated a first-team all-American and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) player of the year four times each, and she was twice chosen as the women’s college soccer player of the year. During her senior year in 1992, she recorded 32 goals and 33 assists during NCAA competition. Her NCAA career total of 103 goals, 72 assists, and 278 points set a record.
The Emerging Champion
Taking a year off from her college playing in 1991, Hamm became a world-renowned soccer player. In 1991, she accompanied Dorrance and the national team to China, where the United States won the first Women’s World Cup. Hamm scored 2 goals. Her college number, 19, was retired by the University of North Carolina when she graduated with a political science degree in 1994. She married classmate Christian Corry, a military helicopter pilot. The couple divorced in 2001.
Hamm scored 2 goals during the five games of the second Women’s World Cup in 1995, in which the United States placed third. She was named most valuable player and played the position of goalkeeper when goalie Briana Scurry was ejected from the match. Despite suffering from a sprained ankle, Hamm played in the championship match at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, winning a gold medal when the United States defeated China 2–1.
Because of limited television coverage, the victorious gold medal winners received minimal national attention. Hamm, however, was noted as a role model for aspiring athletes. The press praised her athleticism and humility. Hamm received accolades and endorsements not often granted to female sports figures. For example, the Women's Sports Foundation named her Sportswoman of the Year in 1997 and 1999. In 1998 and 1999, she won the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly (ESPY) award, granted by ESPN, for Female Athlete of the Year. She was the first person, woman or man, named the US soccer athlete of the year for three consecutive years (1994–96).
In 1996, Garrett Hamm died of aplastic anemia, a rare blood disorder. Hamm asked corporate sports giant Nike to place Garrett’s initials on her signature shoes and hosted the Garrett Games, benefit soccer matches to raise research money for aplastic anemia.
Continuing the Story
Hamm scored her one hundredth goal at the US Cup in Rochester, New York, on September 18, 1998. During a match against Brazil on May 22, 1999, she set the world record for goals scored in international play when she kicked in her 108th. At the 1999 Women’s World Cup, Hamm played adeptly, scoring against Denmark within seventeen minutes, resulting in the 3–0 American victory. Her second goal occurred during the match with Nigeria. She persevered with the US team to defeat China in the championship game after a two-hour, scoreless stalemate and penalty kickoff.
One year after the World Cup, Hamm endured a scoring slump but managed to kick her 121st international goal during the 2000 Gold Cup semifinals. She traveled to the Sydney, Australia, Olympic Games in September 2000. Hamm scored the game-winning goal against the Brazilian team to qualify for the final match against Norway. In the final, she kicked the ball to teammate Tiffeny Milbrett, who scored a goal with only fifteen seconds remaining in the game, tying the score and forcing overtime. However, the Norwegians won 3–2.
In February 2000, Hamm was one of the soccer stars who helped establish the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), the world’s first women’s professional soccer league. The season began in April 2001, with franchises in Atlanta, Boston, North Carolina, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington, D.C. Hamm joined the Washington Freedom team. In 2001 and 2002, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) named her women’s world player of the year. The Freedom won the Founder’s Cup Championships in 2002 and 2003, but in September 2003, WUSA suspended operations.
In 2003, Hamm was awarded the ACC's Greatest Athlete of the conference's first fifty years alongside Michael Jordan.
At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, Hamm won a gold medal with the American team. Afterward, she went on a ten-game farewell tour with the women’s national team. On December 8, 2004, in Carson, California, after a game with Mexico, Hamm retired from soccer. In March 2007, she gave birth to twin daughters. She had married baseball star Nomar Garciaparra in 2003.
Summary
Mia Hamm was a pioneer in promoting women’s sports worldwide. In 1999, she established the Mia Hamm Foundation with two objectives: to endow medical research and efforts to treat people with bone marrow diseases like her brother’s and to fund women’s athletics.
Hamm’s achievements inspired girls to participate in sports, specifically soccer, and enhanced opportunities for women athletes. When she retired in 2004, Hamm had scored 158 goals, the world record for international competition, and she was credited as the world’s best all-around woman soccer player. She was US Soccer’s female athlete of the year for five consecutive years (1994–98), and she won two Women’s World Cups and two Olympic gold medals.
Considered the first woman team-sport superstar, Hamm became an icon. In 1997, she was one of People Magazine’s “Fifty Most Beautiful People.” In September 2003, she appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. She was also the first soccer player elected to carry the American flag for Olympic Closing Ceremonies. She and her teammates appeared in the HBO documentary Dare to Dream: The Story of the US Women’s Soccer Team (2005). In 2007, she was elected to the US National Soccer Hall of Fame. Hamm was also inducted into other halls of fame, including the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and North Carolina Soccer Hall of Fame, and she was the first woman inducted into the World Football Hall of Fame. In January 2008, a new league, Women’s Professional Soccer, revealed its logo, which used Hamm’s silhouette. In 2009, she was awarded the Heisman Humanitarian Award for her work with the Mia Hamm Foundation, founded by Hamm to raise funds and awareness for families affected by aplastic anemia and to promote opportunities for young women in sports.
Although Hamm has spent most of her retirement focusing on raising her three children, at the end of 2014, she received two offers to become more involved in advisory roles in the soccer world. Within the same week, she was contacted by the Italian club AS Roma and the Los Angeles Football Club, which is set to become part of Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2017. Serving on the board of directors for AS Roma, she will also be one of several minority owners for the new Los Angeles Football Club. Other club owners include Garciaparra, Magic Johnson, and actor Will Ferrell. Hamm has expressed her desire for a women's team to eventually be part of the club.
Bibliography
Christopher, Matt. On the Field with . . . Mia Hamm. Boston: Little, 2005. Print.
Fisher, David. Mia Hamm. Kansas City: Andrews, 2000. Print.
Hamm, Mia, with Aaron Heifetz. Go for the Goal: A Champion’s Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Print.
Longman, Jere. The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Print.
Mia Hamm Foundation, https://www.miafoundation.org/. Accessed 26 June 2024.
“Mia Hamm.” Women's Sports Foundation, https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/athlete/mia-hamm/. Accessed 26 June 2024.
O'Keefe, Brian. "Dream Team? Magic Johnson, Mia Hamm, Tony Robbins, among Deep-Pocketed Investors Betting Big on Soccer in L.A." Fortune. Time, 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 8 Mar. 2016.
Schnakenberg, Robert. Mia Hamm. Philadelphia: Chelsea, 2003. Print.
Smith, Gary. “The Secret Life of Mia Hamm.” Sports Illustrated 99.12 (2003): 58. Print.