Happy Birthday to Mia Hamm

Join me in saying “Happy 38th Birthday” to Mariel Margaret Garciaparra, or, as most Carolina fans would know her by: Mia Hamm. She helped head coach Anson Dorrance and the Lady Heels to not one, not two, not three but four NCAA Championships in her five years at Chapel Hill (Hamm sat out the 1991 season to concentrate on the 1991 FIFA Women’s World Cup). With Hamm on the field Carolina only lost one game (out of 95) in that stretch. In those 95 games Hamm found the back of the net 103 times. She was an All-American and ACC POY for her last three years under Coach Dorrance. Hamm also won ACC Female Athlete of the Year in 1993 and 1994. The ex Heel had to wait a long time for her dream to come true, a pro league for women, but when it did happen she was part of it, being on the first ever Washington Freedom roster, which began playing in 2001, she stayed there for a couple of season, playing 49 games and scoring 25 goals in all.

But when it comes to Mia Hamm’s career there is no way you can not talk about what she did for the U.S. Women’s team (on and off the field). She was part of that squad for 275 games (from 1987 to 2004) where she had a total of 158 goals. At nineteen, playing in the `98 World Cup, Hamm became the youngest american to win the championship. Just a couple of months before she announced her retirement in March `04, Hamm and former teammate Michelle Akers were the only two women, and the only two Americans, named to the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living soccer players selected by Pele` and commissioned by FIFA for that organization’s 100th anniversary.

Once again, Happy Birthday to Mia Hamm!

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