Athletes

Mia Hamm is the world's best and most recognized all-around women's soccer player. Hamm capped off a remarkable 16-year career with the U.S. women's national soccer team this summer by winning the gold medal in the 2004 Olympic Games. She holds the record as the world's all-time leading scorer, male or female, with 150 goals scored in international competition. She was a founding member of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) and captain of the Washington Freedom. She led the Freedom to its first Founder's Cup in 2002 and came up victorious the following year. Hamm closed out the 2003 campaign with 11 goals, 11 assists and 33 points scored. She was named the FIFA Women's World Player of the Year (2002, 2001) -- the first two years in which the governing body bestowed the award on a woman. In the 2002 season she received Most Valuable Player honors at the Nike U.S. Women's Cup. She ended that season as the world's all-time leading scorer and team record holder with 136 goals and 114 assists for 386 points. Although the 2001 season was limited, she scored two goals against Germany to clinch the Nike U.S. Women's Cup. In 2000, she proved to be heroic by playing all 462 minutes of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia and helping her team to win the silver medal. Hamm was a member of the historic 1999 Women's World Cup team that took home the championship for the USA in front of 40 million viewers, in this country alone. She is the first three-time U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year, male or female (1996, 1994, 1995). In 1996, she led her team to gold at the Centennial Olympic Games. She won Most Valuable Player honors at the Chiquita Cup (1994). As the youngest player on the national squad, 19-year-old Hamm started five of six games and scored a pair of goals for the USA in China at the FIFIA Women's World Cup (1991). She played in three Olympic Festivals, winning gold (1990, 1989) and silver (1987). Collegiately she was a two-time Missouri Athletic Club and Hermann Award winner (1993, 1992) as a member of the University of North Carolina Tarheels women's soccer team. A three-time All-American and ACC Player of the Year, Hamm was the conference's all-time leading scorer in goals (103), assists (72) and points (278). She also led the nation for three years in scoring at the collegiate level (1993, 1992, 1990), while clinching four NCAA national championships for the Tarheels (1993, 1992, 1990, 1989). Hamm's jersey No. 19 was retired when she completed her degree in political science (1994). She has been named by People Magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" (1997) and the Women's Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year (Team) twice (1999, 1997). A force both on and off the field, she formed the Mia Hamm Foundation in 1999, a nonprofit national organization dedicated to raising funds and awareness for bone marrow diseases and the development of more opportunities for young women to participate in sport.(9/04)