1972-
Soccer Player

An Early Star. Mariel Margaret "Mia" Hamm was born in Selma, Alabama, on 17 March 1972, one of six siblings. Although most people had not heard of her until the end of the 1990s, when Women's World Cup Soccer finally received media attention in the United States, she dominated women's soccer from the end of the 1980s. She made the U.S. National Team at age fifteen in 1987 and played for Notre Dame High School in Wichita Falls, Texas. As a three-time collegiate Ail-American and two-time winner of the prestigious Hermann Award as the best female college soccer player (1992 and 1993), while leading the University of North Carolina Tar Heels to four straight National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships (1989-1993), Hamm was a familiar name and powerful force in women's soccer. She set the NCAA single-season record for points scored with ninety-seven goals. In 1994 UNC retired...