Mia Hamm was born Mariel Margaret Hamm in 1972, and who could have predicted that she would become one of the most famous soccer players in the world? She played for many years on the US national team, as a forward, and has scored more goals in her international career than ANY player, male or female, in history.

Mia Hamm is a household name in the United States, as well as in the countries whose teams she has helped beat the US in international competition. She is an asset to Team USA and a role model for the next generation of female athletes here in the United States. She received scholarships that in days not long ago were awarded only to men, and she got the training she needed to become an elite athlete.

Hamm was named FIFA Women’s Player of the Year the first two times that award was presented, in 2001 and 2002, and is listed as one of FIFA’s 125 greatest living players of all time, a list that was compiled by Pele!

Mia retired from soccer in 2004 and played her last game on the 2004 Fan Celebration Tour, which commemorated the US Women’s National Team’s 2004 Olympic victory. 2007 was her first year of Hall of Fame eligibility. of national football and was induced by 137 of the 141 votes cast. Womens Professional Soccer, a league that only started in 2009, features her silhouette on its logo. Hamm was also inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

Mia Hamm spent her early years on Air Force bases with her parents Bill and Stephanie Hamm and five siblings. She started playing organized sports at a very young age and she joined the US women’s national team at age 15, making her the youngest ever to play for them.

He attended UNC Chapel Hill, helping the Tarheels win four NCAA championships. In fact, the team lost only ONE game she played in during her career there!

In 1991, when the US women’s team won the FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time, Hamm became the youngest American woman to win a World Cup championship, at age 19.

In 1997, Hamm founded the Mia Hamm Foundation, which is dedicated to bone marrow research as well as helping women’s sports teams advance.

In 1999, Hamm broke the all-time international soccer scoring record when he scored his 158th goal in a game in Orlando, Florida against Brazil. The same year, Nike named the largest building in its corporate offices after Hamm, and that year she again led the US to the championship at the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

In 2004, she announced that she would retire after the Athens Olympics to settle down and start a family with her husband, baseball great Nomar Garciaparra.