Mia Hamm

Lore & Background

Hamm was born on March 17, 1972, in Selma, Alabama to Bill and Stephanie Hamm. She is the fourth of six children. She wore corrective shoes as a toddler after being born with a club foot. Hamm spent her childhood on various U.S. Air Force bases around the world with her family. She first played soccer while living in Florence, Italy. At age five, Hamm joined her first soccer team in Wichita Falls, Texas. Her father coached Hamm and her newly adopted brother, 8-year-old Garrett. In junior high school, Hamm excelled as a football player on the boys' team. She attended Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, and helped the Lake Braddock soccer team win the 1989 state championship.

Reader's Guide

From 1989 to 1993, Hamm attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she helped the Tar Heels win four NCAA Division I Championships in five years. She red-shirted the 1991 season to focus on preparation for the inaugural 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup in China. North Carolina lost one game of the 95 she played on the team. Hamm earned All-American honors, was named the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Player of the Year for three consecutive years, and was named ACC Female Athlete of the Year in 1993 and 1994. She graduated from North Carolina in 1994 with the ACC records for goals (103), assists (72), and total points (278). In 2003, Hamm and Michael Jordan were named the greatest athletes of the ACC's first fifty years. Hamm was a member of the United States women's national college team that won a silver medal at the 1993 Summer Universiade in Buffalo, New York. The University of North Carolina retired Hamm's No.19 jersey in 1994. In 2001, Hamm was a founding player in the first professional women's soccer league in the United States, the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), and played for the Washington Freedom from 2001 to 2003. Throughout the league's history, Hamm was hailed as the star of the league and used heavily in marketing and promotion. In a poll of 1,000 advertising executives conducted in 2001, she was voted "the most appealing female athlete", garnering almost twice as many votes as the runner-up Anna Kournikova. During the league's inaugural match between the Freedom and the Bay Area CyberRays at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., Hamm was fouled in the penalty area, which resulted in a penalty kick that her teammate Pretinha converted to mark the first goal scored in the league. The Freedom won 1–0. The 34,148 fans in attendance surpassed the turnout of every MLS game that weekend, while the television broadcast reached 393,087 households. Playing as a midfielder and forward, Hamm played in 19 of the Freedom's 21 matches during the 2001 season. She led the team in goals (6) and assists (4). The Freedom finished in seventh place during the regular season with a 6–12–3 record. Hamm suffered a knee injury in November 2001 that kept her off the field for several months during early 2002. She played half of the 2002 season with the Freedom, scoring eight goals. The team finished the season in third place with a 11–5–5 record

Did You Know?

• Hamm made her debut for the United States women's national soccer team at the age of 15 at the 1987 U.S. Olympic Festival.
• As of March 2026, Hamm ranks third on the list of most international goals scored, by players of any gender.
• She ranks fourth in U.S. national team appearances (276) and first in international assists (144).
• Hamm was twice named FIFA World Player of the Year, was named U.S. Soccer Female Athlete of the Year five years in a row, and won six ESPY awards.
• The Women's Sports Foundation named her Sportswoman of the Year in 1997 and 1999.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Mariel Margaret Hamm (born March 17, 1972) is an American former professional soccer player, two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion." — Mia Hamm "During our Zoom interview just before Labor Day. She notes that nothing less that winning each World Cup is the expectation placed on the USA’s women." — Mia Hamm "Mia Hamm Says Olympics Are USA's Next Huge Test By Andy Frye, Sep 11, 2023, Retrieved 23/11/2023." — Mia Hamm